Pilgrims Progress

The Pilgrim’s Progress (1943)
By John Bunyan | Marshall, Morgan & Scott
ISBN: none (registered directly with Heaven)
Condition: Good as sold by Crappy Old Books

This is The Pilgrim’s Progress, which is technically a 17th-century Protestant allegory but in practice is:

• The original road movie

• The prototype self-help journey

• And the reason so many pious Victorians named their children things like Faithful and Mercy.

This particular copy is a 1943 wartime edition, printed while the world was on fire and someone at Marshall, Morgan & Scott clearly decided what everyone needed—alongside ration coupons and air raid instructions—was a brisk reminder about the Narrow Way.

What actually happens (spoilers: lots of walking)

Our hero is called Christian, because subtlety is for later centuries. He:

• Leaves the City of Destruction

• Sets off for the Celestial City

• And immediately wanders into every possible metaphor for spiritual, moral and logistical difficulty.

Along the way he encounters:

• The Slough of Despond – like Monday morning, but with more mud.

• Vanity Fair – consumer capitalism before it had an Instagram account.

• Giant Despair and Doubting Castle – the original mental health awareness campaign, only with more clubs and chains.

• A supporting cast including Evangelist, Faithful, Hopeful, Talkative, Apollyon, and other characters whose names double as both personality and HR file.

It’s all there: bad advice, good companions, sudden pitfalls, trials, and the occasional moment of “Oh, I recognise myself in this and I’m not entirely comfortable about it.”

Why it still works (even if you’re not a 17th-century Nonconformist)

Despite the archaic language and heavy-duty theology, Bunyan is weirdly readable:

• The story moves. Christian keeps going, getting lost, getting up again.

• The imagery is sharp: you don’t forget the Slough, the Hill Difficulty, the Valley of the Shadow.

• The satire on religious hypocrisy, shallow faith and noisy opinion-havers is still… painfully applicable.

You can read it as:

• Serious spiritual classic

• Historical curiosity

• Or surprisingly modern “How to keep going when everything is dreadful” handbook.

This particular 1943 copy

From the photo:

• Plain brown cloth boards – no gaudy dust jacket, just quiet wartime respectability.

• Condition: Good – in Crappy Old Books terms that means:

  • Binding solid, hinges sound, pages all present and not wandering off to the Celestial Recycling Bin.

  • Some rubbing to corners and spine ends, a faint mark or two on the boards – call it “honest wear” rather than “persecution”.

  • Pages likely tanned to a gentle sepia: the sort of patina you only get from eight decades of surviving both readers and British weather.

It’s the kind of book that looks exactly right next to a hurricane lamp and a mug of strong tea.

Why you might actually want this

• You’ve always meant to read Pilgrim’s Progress but didn’t fancy a shiny modern “gift edition” designed for coffee tables.

• You enjoy allegory done with absolute conviction, rather than ironic distance.

• You’re into wartime religious / moral publishing and want a copy from the era when people were literally reading this between air raids.

• You collect Marshall, Morgan & Scott titles or just have a thing for sober 1940s hardbacks.

It also has excellent passive-aggressive potential:

“Oh, that old brown book? Just Pilgrim’s Progress.
You know – about staying on the narrow way and not getting distracted by Vanity Fair…”

Condition vs. Journey

• Physically: Good – a little worn at the edges, but completely up for another long trek through the Valley of Whatever Life Throws At You.

• Literarily/spiritually: still doing what it’s always done—telling you, via a man called Christian and some very pointed place names, that the road is hard, the company matters, and giants of Despair are best dealt with before breakfast.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where the bindings are plain, the condition is Good, and the path from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City now runs conveniently through your letterbox.

Keep browsing: See more Literary Classics books Other books by John Bunyan