John Bunyan

No autograph literary manuscripts by Bunyan are known to survive. His manuscripts are lost despite the fact that at least fourteen of them are recorded as being preserved after his death, and purchased in 1691 from his son John, one of them serving as printer's copy as late as the mid-18th century. In the Mercurius Reformatus of 11 June 1691 an advertisement appeared stating that John Bunyan hath left behind him Ten Manuscripts prepared by himself for the Press before his death and that his widow was desired to print them (with some other of his Works, which have been already printed, but are at present not to be had) which will make together a Book of 10s. in sheets, in Fol. (Harrison, Bibliography, pp. xxv-xxvi). The resulting Folio edition of Bunyan's Works, which was published in London in 1691-2, was the work of Charles Doe, comb-maker of Southwark. In what he proclaimed on the title-page was only The First Volume of his intended edition, he printed Ten of [Bunyan's] Excellent Manuscripts prepared for the Press before his Death, never before Printed. The number of pages in the volume ran to about 155 Sheets instead of near a Hundred and Forty Sheets, the number previously proposed to subscribers, the error of computation arising from the smallness of the Writing of the Manuscripts (Harrison, Bibliography, pp. 65-6, and see also Brown-Harrison, pp. 415-28). The ten manuscripts printed in this form contained the following works: An Exposition on the Ten first chapters of Genesis and part of the Eleventh, Justification by imputed righteousness, Paul's Departure and Crown, Israel's Hope Encouraged, The Desires of the Righteous Granted, The Saint's Privilege and Profit, Christ a Compleat Saviour, The Saints' Knowledge of Christ's Love, The House of the Forest of Lebanon and Of Antichrist and his Ruine, and of the Slaying of the Witnesses. The titles of four further works remaining in manuscript are mentioned by Doe in another publication six years later. Two of the four — A Pocket Concordance to the Scriptures and A Christian Dialogue — are not known ever to have been printed and the manuscripts (like all the others) are unaccounted for. The third additional work — The Heavenly Foot-Man — was published by Doe as a separate volume in 1698. Doe observes in the volume (in a catalogue of Bunyan's works) that The four Books following [viz. the four additional works remaining in manuscript] were never yet Printed, except this now of the Heavenly Footman, which I bought in 1691, now six years since, of Mr. John Bunyan, the eldest son of our Author (Harrison, Bibliography, pp. 69-70, and Brown-Harrison, pp. 429-30). The fourth additional work — A Relation of the Imprisonment of Mr. John Bunyan — was not printed until 1765, the publisher being James Buckland, who was probably acting at the instigation of Samuel Palmer, editor of the Nonconformist Memorial (Harrison, Bibliography, pp. 70-1). Buckland's copy-text was later described by Joseph Gurney in The Evangelical Magazine, 21 (1813), 148, as a manuscript in Mr. Bunyan's hand-writing, a very fair copy sewed up in a little book, and as having been purchased in the summer of 1765 from Bunyan's aged and infirm grand-daughter [Hannah Bunyan] at Bedford for five guineas. The circumstances of this purchase suggest either that the manuscript acquired by Doe in 1691 was subsequently re-acquired by the Bunyan family in Bedford or else that two manuscript copies were preserved — one purchased by Doe, the other retained by the family. In any event, none of these manuscripts has come to light in more recent times; neither (apart from those copied out in the Church Book) has any of Bunyan's original letters which, according to Doe, were many.

In the absence of Bunyan's literary manuscripts, various other documents, signatures and inscriptions have been attributed to him over the years. Of these probably only two have an undoubted claim to authenticity and have been given entries below (BuJ 3-4).

Other alleged examples of Bunyan's handwriting — chiefly signatures — range from the possibly authentic to the undoubtedly spurious. Where uncertainty persists, it is because signatures alone — which may quite legitimately be subject to considerable variation during a person's lifetime — are rarely sufficient evidence on which to base positive judgments (especially when, as in this case, there is so little authenticated autograph material for comparison); also because there were apparently several John Bunyans living in the Bedford area in the writer's lifetime (two at Cranfield and one at Streatley, for example). For the record, however, the following is a list of alleged miscellaneous specimens of Bunyan's hand known at present (though others may well turn up in due course):

Various other documents relating to Bunyan have been preserved and, for the most part, are cited by his biographers. Some of the most notable may be mentioned as follows. At the age of sixteen, when he was eligible for military service, Bunyan became a soldier in the Parliamentary garrison at Newport Pagnell commanded by Sir Samuel Luke, where he served between c.October 1644 and c.July 1647. For evidence of this, see Brown-Harrison, pp. 46-50. His name (John Bunnion) appears on the muster rolls of Newport Pagnell in these years — viz. in the list of Leiu^t Collo^ll Cokayn his Company Mustered the 4^th: of January 1644 (27th name in the first column). This list is in the National Archives, Kew, SP 28/121B, p. 30, and negative reproductions of the relevant pages appear in Brown-Harrison, after p. 46.

It is thus possible that Bunyan was the John Bynyon who, with many other citizens of Newport Pagnell, signed a petition calling on the Parliamentary authorities to disband the garrison there (see 1 above). A reference to one Bunyan, of Bedford, a tinker, [who] was countenanced and suffered to speak on his pulpit to the congregation appears in articles against William Dell, rector of Yelden, annexed to an unsuccessful petition of 20 June 1660 by Royalist citizens of Yelden, preserved in the Parliamentary Archives (it is cited in HMC, 7th report (1879), Appendix, p. 102, and quoted in Brown-Harrison, p. 118).

Various Bedford Gaol lists containing Bunyan's name, between 1662 and 1672, are preserved among Assize records in the Bedfordshire Record Office (HSA 1662 W1; HSA 1665 S1; HSA 1667 W58; HSA 1668 S1 and W1; HSA 1669 W1; HSA 1672 W20). Two of these lists (for 1668 and 1672) were formerly offered for sale in Quaritch's catalogue No. 629 (1945), item 226. A facsimile of one of the lists for 1668 (with the name John Bunnyon) appears in the pamphlet The Moot Hall, Elstow (Bedfordshire County Council, 1952), after p. 14. A memorandum, dated 6 October 1672, certifying that Bunyan showed the Mayor and Aldermen of Leicester his licence to preach (his licence, dated 9 May 1672, being to teach as a congregationall p[ar]-son being of that perswasion in the house of Josias Roughead in the Towne of Bedford, or in any other place roome or house Licensed by his ma^tie) is now in the Leicestershire Record office (BR 11/5/84). It is recorded in HMC, 8th Report (1881), Appendix, p. 440, and edited in Brown-Harrison, pp. 234-5.

The warrant for Bunyan's second arrest, dated 4 March 1674/5, is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 39). It is reproduced in facsimile in British Literary Autographs, Series I, ed. Verlyn Klinkenborg et al. (New York, 1981), No. 52, and (reduced) in Brown-Harrison, after p. 266. A 19th-century photograph of the document (made when it was in the possession of W.G. Thorpe of the Middle Temple) is in the Bunyan Meeting Museum, Bedford. F.G. Emmison, in The Writer of the Warrant for the Arrest of John Bunyan, Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 12 (1928), 97-8, presents arguments for identifying the scribe as the public notary and deputy registrar William Johnson.

A few documents signed by Bedfordshire justices who played a part in Bunyan's imprisonment are in the Bunyan Meeting Museum, Bedford. Some twelve deeds relating to a Bunyan family in Buckinghamshire, possibly a branch of the author's family, between 1572 and 1670, were sold at Sotheby's, 12 October 1976, Lot 514, to H.J. Webb.

Various alleged personal relics of Bunyan are preserved, chiefly at the Bunyan Meeting Museum, Bedford. The majority are listed in Brown-Harrison, pp. 487-90. They include items which are traditionally claimed to be Bunyan's chair, table, anvil, marquetry cabinet, grandfather clock (owned by his family), pulpit (at Zoar Street Chapel, Southwark), flute, violin, keys, prison plate, walking stick, jug, cup, ring, candlesticks and Bibles, as well as the church doors at which he stood in Bedford.

For various illustrations of these items, see Brown-Harrison, plates after pp. 272, 368 and 420; Offor, I, lviii, lxxv, lxxvi; Cyril Hargreaves and M. Greenshields, Catalogue of The Bunyan Meeting Library and Museum, Bedford (Bedford, 1955), after p. 22; F.T. Wells, Story of John Bunyan Museum (London, 1957), passim; and in other pamphlets and postcards offered for sale at the Bunyan Meeting Museum.

An eighteenth-century account of Bunyan's life by John Lewis, minister of Margate, is in the Bodleian (MS Rawl. C. 409, ff. 2-34). The autograph manuscript of Robert Southey's life of Bunyan, dated 13 March 1830, is in the Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 413). A nineteenth-century Latin translation of The Pilgrim's Progress by William Massey, entitled Peregrinantis progressus, together with a short life of Bunyan also in Latin, is in Aberdeen University Library (MS 385).