Page:John Bunyan's Dream Story.djvu/9



F the great books which have been composed or partly written in prison, the Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, is the best known and the most remarkable. Its author was a young man of thirty-two when he was thrown into the common jail at Bedford, England; he was past forty-four and middle-aged when he was released. His only offense against the law was preaching that which he believed to be true.

The dungeon in which he was immured was so vile that the worst prisons in our country are delightful places when compared with it. But here John Bunyan had ample time to think and to put his thoughts together. His education was of the poorest sort, and during his imprisonment he had access to but two volumes—the Bible and Fox's "Book of Martyrs." As he thought upon the great problems of existence, the idea of a story came, little by little, into his mind—a story in the form of a dream, a story of man's life regarded as a journey or pilgrimage. 5