Bunyan’s Posthumously Published Works

This chapter provides an overview of sixteen works left in manuscript at Bunyan’s death. After giving an account of the circumstances of their posthumous publication, the chapter discusses their dates of composition and why Bunyan did not publish them, emphasizing particularly the context of severe persecution in which they were written. Most originated as sermons, and the chapter considers Bunyan’s style and rhetoric as a preacher. It also discusses Bunyan’s use of typology in interpreting the Bible, particularly in his commentary on the first ten chapters of Genesis: one of the most ambitious of the posthumously published works. Finally, it argues that these works reveal a great deal about the development of millenarianism in Bunyan’s thinking, and about changes in his political views.