John Bunyan

Lived

1628–1688

Era

Modern

Where

Bedford, England

Tradition

Particular Baptist

The Pilgrim's Progress, written in gaol

A tinker and former parliamentary soldier who became a Baptist preacher, and who spent twelve years in Bedford gaol rather than agree to stop preaching — he was offered release at any time on that condition.

Why it matters

The Pilgrim's Progress, written during a later imprisonment, has never been out of print, was for two centuries the book most English-speaking households owned after the Bible, and has been translated into more than two hundred languages. Its power is that it renders an inward argument as a landscape — the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair, the Valley of the Shadow — in the plain speech of an unlettered man.

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.