John Bunyan is born the son of a brass-worker in the Bedfordshire village of Elstow

John Bunyan marries a woman whose only possessions inspire him - they are two religious books inherited from her father

John Bunyan joins a Nonconformist church in Bedford and becomes one of their preachers

John Bunyan engages in a fierce war of pamphlets with the Quakers, with whose doctrines he profoundly disagrees

John Bunyan's first wife dies, leaving him with four young children

John Bunyan becomes an itinerant preacher, supporting himself by mending pots and pans

John Bunyan marries his second wife, Elizabeth

John Bunyan is arrested for preaching without a licence

John Bunyan is convicted of unlicensed preaching and spends the next eleven years in Bedford Gaol

John Bunyan publishes his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, written in Bedford Gaol

John Bunyan is released from Bedford Gaol as a result of the Declaration of Indulgence

John Bunyan is imprisoned again, for about six months, in a new wave of persecution of Nonconformists

Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular

John Bunyan publishes The Life and Death of Mr Badman, an allegory of a misspent life that is akin to a novel

John Bunyan publishes The Holy War, an allegory of the devil laying siege to the human soul

John Bunyan publishes the second part of The Pilgrim's Progress

John Bunyan dies during a preaching visit to London, and is buried in the Nonconformist cemetery, Bunhill Fields