THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS John Bunyan's masterful religious allegory narrates the journey of an everyman hero Christian as he attempts to navigate the trials and tribulations of this world the City of Destruction on the path towards paradise the Celestial City. Though weighed down by the burden of original sin Christian overcomes the distractions of the world moving past the Slough of Despond the Hill of Difficulty and the Valley of the Shadow of Death while simultaneously resisting the temptations of the Worldly Wise the Vain and the Ignorant. The product of a lifetime of religious work and thought Bunyan's virtuosic narrative fundamentally altered Protestant belief and remains one of the most important and influential works in the English language.