John Bunyan was born in 1628 at Elstow near
Bedford, England. Then after
years of spiritual struggle, he found salvation in
Christ and began to preach to groups of dissenters.
Arrested and condemned to Bedford jail for illegal
preaching, a punishment from which he might
well have been freed by promising to give up his
ministry, he remained in prison for nearly
twelve years, and after several years of liberty. His was
an imprisonment unique in English literature
for the quality of the fruit it bore — notably
the incomparable Pilgrim's Progress.