A Wellington man has secured the rights to hand out 8000 copies of what is widely regarded as “the greatest allegory ever written” to prisoners in New Zealand.

Anthony de Vries has 10 years of prison ministry experience and says he’s been distributing copies of The Pilgrims Progress by English Christian writer and preacher John Bunyan in “old English” for years.

Bunyan began his work while in the Bedfordshire county gaol for violations of the Conventicle Act, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England.

The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come was first published in 1678 and is arguably the most published book in the world besides the Bible. When Mr de Vries discovered a new version in “easy every-day language”, he approached the American publishers for permission to hand them out to prisoners around the country.

“We’ve printed 2000 books, and we’ve handed out 500,” he said “and we’re hoping with support to give one to every prisoner in New Zealand.”

Mr de Vries needs to raise $60 to $80,000 to achieve his goal. He has “stepped out in faith and spent $16,000 and has 1500 books in stock printed, not with covers on, as we have run out of funds”.

Anco Print Ltd, of Lower Hutt, has been granted the rights by the Bridge-Logos Foundation to republish this timeless classic and make it available, via the New Zealand Prison Chaplaincy Service.

The Service is making them available to prison libraries, chapel libraries and for distribution to individual prisoners. The books will be offered to prisoners by the chaplains at no cost.

It has now been made available to readers in modern English with a Bible study provided at the end of every chapter.