Author Description

This is the first critical edition of Bunyan's dark and vigorous delineation of provincial vice, a book he described as "the Life and Death of the Ungodly and their travel from this world to Hell." First published in 1680, his tale of the greedy, lustful, and exploitative shopkeeper Badman is a vivid account of small-town life in the late 17th century, providing in its realism a precursor to the novel while embodying in its moral abstraction the values and mythology of 17th-century Puritan society. Based on the only authentic extant first edition of 1680, this new edition includes a full introduction and commentary.