The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's masterful religious allegory, tells the journey of an everyday hero, Christian, who seeks to navigate the trials and tribulations of this world, the City of Destruction, on his way to Paradise, the Celestial City. Burdened by the weight of original sin, Christian overcomes the distractions of the world and moves 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 life filled with religious labor and thought, Bunyan's virtuosic narrative style has fundamentally transformed Protestantism and remains one of the most important and influential works in the English language.