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.
“Magnificent and searching study … provocative, absorbing and hugely knowledgeable.” —Sunday Times
“Hill claims to put Bunyan back into his ‘revolutionary age’ … and is totally successful.” —London Review of Books
“The commanding interpreter of seventeenth-century England.” —Guardian
“The dean and paragon of English historians.” —E.P. Thompson, author of The Making of the English Working Class
“Wide-ranging, popular and immensely prolific … the dominant figure in studies of the period.” —Telegraph
Christopher Hill (1912–2003), born in York, was a historian and academic specializing in seventeenth-century English history. As a young man he witnessed the growth of the Nazi party firsthand during a prolonged holiday in Germany, an experience he later said contributed to the radicalization of his politics. He was master of Balliol College, University of Oxford, his alma mater, from 1965 to 1978. His celebrated and influential works include Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution; The World Turned Upside Down; and A Turbulent, Seditious and Fractious People: John Bunyan and His Church.
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.
Praise
“Magnificent and searching study … provocative, absorbing and hugely knowledgeable.” —Sunday Times
“Hill claims to put Bunyan back into his ‘revolutionary age’ … and is totally successful.” —London Review of Books
“The commanding interpreter of seventeenth-century England.” —Guardian
“The dean and paragon of English historians.” —E.P. Thompson, author of The Making of the English Working Class
“Wide-ranging, popular and immensely prolific … the dominant figure in studies of the period.” —Telegraph
Author
Christopher Hill (1912–2003), born in York, was a historian and academic specializing in seventeenth-century English history. As a young man he witnessed the growth of the Nazi party firsthand during a prolonged holiday in Germany, an experience he later said contributed to the radicalization of his politics. He was master of Balliol College, University of Oxford, his alma mater, from 1965 to 1978. His celebrated and influential works include Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution; The World Turned Upside Down; and A Turbulent, Seditious and Fractious People: John Bunyan and His Church.
