Briefly imprisoned for preaching without a license, he is believed to have begun writing the most famous Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, while in jail. The Pilgrim's Progress was published in 1678 (Part I) and 1684 (Part II). Edited and annotated with the student reader in mind, this Norton Critical Edition is the indispensable guide to the language, allusions, and historical references of this challenging text. An unusually rich Contexts section is thematically organized in four sections: Biographical, Geographical and Visual, Theological and Literary, and Abridgements and Adaptation, and includes eleven essential visuals. Criticism collects twenty major essays spanning two hundred years of thinking and writing about The Pilgrim's Progress, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, F. R. Leavis, Dorothy Van Ghent, J. Paul Hunter, Stanley Fish, Barbara A. Johnson, and Cynthia Wall, among others.