This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we continue with our American stories.

John Bunyan was a preacher in Bedford, England.

He's the author of The Pilgrim's Progress, which he wrote in 1676, while in prison for

preaching without a license.

This book quickly found its way onto ships that carried it to the new world.

In America, the book was so popular that it was said.

Familiarity with the book was considered the mark of being a good American.

Louisa May Alcott's famous novel Little Women mentions that the sisters often read the book.

Harriet Beecher Stowe considered it to be her favorite book apart from the Bible and often read the book. Harriet Beecher Stowe considered it to be her favorite book apart from

the Bible and often read and taught it to her children. With that, let's take a listen to the story

of the Pilgrim's Progress. In the year 1676, a poor tinker named John Bunyan was imprisoned in Bedford jail.

While he was there, he started to write one of the most famous books in the English language,

and everything is told as if it happened in a dream.

I dreamed, he says, that I saw a man with a book in his hand and a great burden on his

back.

As he read the book, he began to weep.

Then in a lamentable voice, he cried out, What shall I do to be saved?

For he lived in the city of destruction, which he learnt from his book

was doomed to be burnt with fire from heaven,

and everyone who lived there would perish in the flames.

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