The World of The Pilgrim's Progress: Introduction

Welcome to my World of Pilgrim's Progress Blog.

Published in 1678, John Bunyan's classic tale of one man's journey from The City of Destruction to The Celestial City has inspired and encouraged generations of Christians all over the world to stand strong and to persevere in their Faith, no matter what adversity may come their way. Its characters present allies and foes that many of us would recognise from our own lives, all residing in a place which—while easy to dismiss upon first glance—is actually a rich world, and no doubt would have inspired many of the beloved realms of our favourite fantasy stories. It features castles, knights, giants, damsels, princes, dragons, witches, monsters... Its locations vary as widely as the frozen town of Stupidity in the arctic wastes of the north, to the Enchanted Ground in the south, where Pilgrims—so close to the end of their journey—lay down to rest, and never wake again...

While I do not claim to be a scholar on the book or its contents, the story has excited my imagination ever since my father introduced it to me as a child. In this blog I will discuss characters, locations and themes presented in the First and Second Parts of the story—as well as the pseudepigraphic Third Part, which was published with Bunyan's originals as recently as the mid-19th Century!—in the hopes that you may develop a new appreciation for this incredible world which Bunyan created.

But, like all these blogs, at the end of the day my posts are simply a way for me to serve any of four purposes:

1) to let off some steam,

2) to try to find my flow when overwhelmed with writer's block,

3) to connect and engage with you—my readers, and

4) to get out of re-editing manuscripts for the umpteenth time.