The Pilgrim's Progress

A man named Christian, weighed down by a heavy burden on his back and terrified by the book he is reading, leaves the City of Destruction and sets out for the Celestial City. On his journey, told as a dream, he falls into the Slough of Despond, loses his burden at the foot of the Cross, fights the monster Apollyon, passes through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, is arrested with his friend Faithful at Vanity Fair, and is locked in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair.

John Bunyan (1628–1688), a tinker and Puritan preacher, began the book while imprisoned in Bedford for preaching without a licence, and published it in 1678. For centuries it was, after the Bible, the most read book in English homes, and names such as Vanity Fair and the Slough of Despond have entered everyday language. Bunyan later added a second part, about the journey of Christian's wife, Christiana.