Preacher, soldier, rebel: Who was the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the most influential books ever written? John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most important works of English literature. Translated into more than 200 languages, it once rivalled the Bible in popularity in the English-speaking world. In A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People, Christopher Hill reassesses the well-known author to recover Bunyan’s significance as a preacher—a man whose nonconformist religion led him into conflict with the Quakers and resulted in long years of imprisonment. It was while confined that he wrote his most famous works. This classic biography by one of the leading historians of the seventeenth century offers an extraordinary insight into one of Britain’s most influential writers.

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is one of the most important works of English literature. Translated into more than 200 languages, it once rivalled the Bible in popularity in the English-speaking world. In A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People, Christopher Hill reassesses the well-known author to recover Bunyan's significance as a preacher-a man whose nonconformist religion led him into conflict with the Quakers and resulted in long years of imprisonment. It was while confined that he wrote his most famous works. This classic biography by one of the leading historians of the seventeenth century offers an extraordinary insight into one of Britain's most influential writers.

This highly acclaimed biography explores how John Bunyan's writings and personality were influenced by the turbulent times in which he lived. The book examines the reasons why The Pilgrim's Progress holds a unique place in popular literature, and sheds new light on the meaning it held for its original readers. Christopher Hill believes that we should not view Bunyan's works as timeless literary artefacts, but take account of the social, political, and religious forces that acted upon their author. He explores the impact on Bunyan of his humble origins, the revolution of the 1640s and his experience in the Parlimentary army, his twelve-year imprisonment, and his difficulties in writing under censorship and persecution. The Pilgrim's Progress, which soon became the world's best-seller, is shown to derive from Bunyan's personal experience of defeat. - back cover.

Robert McKelvey argues that John Bunyan wrote The Holy War as a warfare allegory symbolizing the salvation history of Scripture from a Calvinistic-covenantal perspective. In this cosmic drama of redemption, the "Histories That Mansoul, and her Wars Anatomize" include the individual-soteric-microcosmic level or ordo salutis unfolding analogous to the redemptive-historical-macrocosmic level or historia salutis. The eternal covenant of redemption provides the foundation for this history of salvation, which progresses from creation to the anticipation of consummation. This scheme finds its roots in the Puritan philosophy of "universal history" which sees all historical events serving God's redemptive purposes. The individual, through union with Christ founded on election, participates in the drama by inclusion within the trans-historical covenant of grace. As a depiction of cosmic war, The Holy War sets forth the enmity between the church and Antichrist, which is representative of the greater battle between Christ and the devil from Genesis to Revelation. As a pastoral guide to persecuted saints, Bunyan retrospectively rehearses the history of redemption to grant comfort. In addition, he prospectively reveals the consummation of redemption to encourage perseverance and instil eschatological hope. This thesis is substantiated contextually through Bunyan's life and writings, historiographically by surveying the history of Holy War interpretation, pre-textually by examining the introduction to the allegory, and textually by analyzing the allegory itself.

A collection of nine essays on the context and consequences of the Act of Uniformity of 1662 and the subsequent "Great Ejection," in which around two thousand ministers, teachers, and university fellows gave up their positions rather than submit to the conditions of the Act.

Prayer divided seventeenth-century England. Anglican Conformists such as Lancelot Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor upheld set forms of prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, a book designed to unite the nation in worship. Puritan Reformers and Dissenters such as John Milton and John Bunyan rejected the prayer book and advocated for extemporaneous or free prayer. In 1645, the mainly Puritan Long Parliament proscribed the Book of Common Prayer and dismantled the Anglican Church in the midst of civil war. This led Anglican poets and liturgists to defend their tradition with energy and erudition in print. In 1662, with monarchy restored, the mainly Anglican Cavalier Parliament reinstated the Church and its prayer book to impose religious uniformity. This galvanized English Nonconformity and Dissent and gave rise to a vibrant literary counter-tradition. Addressing this fascinating history, David Gay examines competing claims to spiritual gifts and graces in polemical texts and their influence on prayer and poetry. Amid the contention of differing voices, the disputed connection of poetry and prayer, imagination and religion, emerges as a central tension in early modern literature and culture.