Pocket Books’ 1951 edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress is very different from this 1969 edition published by Airmont. While the cover of the former shows a solitary “pilgrim”, “Leonard’s” cover for this edition is far more allegorical and symbolic in nature. The figures have somewhat of an androgynous appearance, with a visual echo of the art of William Blake, particularly in the form of the winged red reptilian demon / lion standing at the left.
From rear cover…
“The Pilgrim’s Progress has been described as the fictionalized version of John Bunyan’s autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners; the combination of a fairy tale, a picaresque adventure story. and a realistic novel; a serious religious allegory; and a myth, according to Olla Winslow, of “Everyman’s journey … a universal quest for men to the goal of his supreme desiring, his passionate search for unseen perfection, unattainable on earth … a universal quest, realized individually.”
“Although these facets and traits and implicitly evident in the work, The Pilgrim’ Progress is primarily a story, as Bunyan himself states in his apology, ‘of the way / And race of saints, in this gospel day, / … an allegory / About their journey, and the way to glory.” That is, it is a conspicuous, symbolic portrayal of the religious struggles and experiences of sincere, elected Puritans of the later-seventeenth century.
“Bunyan himself experienced the struggles which he relates in allegorical form and he gave psychological states of mind the vivid forms of demons and monsters which the Pilgrim must overcome to reach the Celestial City. In the England of Bunyan’s day, after the restoration of Charles II to the throne (1660), there were more tangible trials, too. The Church of England again dictated the state religion and Bunyan, a Baptist preacher , was jailed because he refused to stop preaching. It was in jail that The Pilgrim’s Progress was begun.”
References
John Bunyan, at…
The Pilgrim’s Progress, at…