The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory written in two parts (1678 and 1684) by the English writer John Bunyan, a symbolic vision of the Christian's pilgrimage through life, at one time second only to the Bible in popularity. Without doubt the most famous Christian allegory still in print, The Pilgrim’s Progress was first published in the reign of Charles II and was completed while its author was imprisoned for offences against the Conventicle Act (which prohibited the conducting of religious services outside the bailiwick of the Church of England).