IS BUNYAN READ?

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

IS BUNYAN READ?

Is Bunyan read to-day ? To doubt it might seem heretical. But we have the word of the Rev. A. E. Gifford, who lectured on the great Puritan finkerwriter in Melbourne recently that children of to-day have not even a nodding acquaintance with him. In this connection Mr. Gifford told a story which for unconscious humour ranks as a superb example of the schoolboy howler. In 1931 an English schoolboy sent a letter to the Religious Tract Society, address “John Bunyan, Esq. Please forward.” The letter, when opened, read: (“Dear <si r> —1 am glad to see in the newspapers that they are selling millions of your books, and I compliment you on your success. I collect autographs. I have already got Jack Hobbs and Edgar Wallace, and I want yours to complete the set. Please send me one.” Bunyan's greatest work, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” had had enormous sales since it was penned 250 years ago, and the older generation of to-day was “brought upon it.” His "Life and Death of Mr. Badman,” and his “Holy War” were scarcely known, and to-day who had heard of the quaint-ly-named “A Few Signs from Hell.”