The Life and Death of Mr Badman: Presented to the World in a Familiar Dialogue Between Mr Wiseman and Mr Attentive

This first critical edition is one of few reprints of a book which was originally published in 1680, two years after The Pilgrim's Progress, when it was described by Bunyan as 'the Life and Death of the Ungodly, and their travel from this world to Hell', in contrast to Christian's journey to heaven. In fact, Badman is not a true sequel to the great allegory; rather, it is a very different book, a dark, coarse, vigorous delineation of provincial vice. From his apprenticeship until he becomes a prosperous shopkeeper, Badman gives free rein to greed, lust, and the exploitation of others, including his virtuous wife. Puritan moral abstraction is almost buried under realistic detail in a work which looks both back to the medieval homily and forward to the novel. It is an indispensable work for the study of seventeenth-century Puritan society and its mythology; as with the same editors' The Holy War, it contains a full introduction and commentary.