This edition includes 10 illustrations. Allegory holds an exalted position in the history of English literature, with works like Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene receiving the lion’s share of attention. Yet John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is considered by many Christians to be required reading, second only to the Bible, and the story’s simple language – a far cry from the flowery, complex verse of earlier writers – lends itself to the straightforward tale of Christian, an everyman with whom the reader is meant to identify, as he journeys from the City of Destruction to salvation, encountering trials and tribulations but eventually reaching the Celestial City.