The Pilgrim’s Progress

The Essex House Press printed this and two other Puritan titles, A Journal of the Life and Travels of John Woolman in the Service of the Gospel and Some Fruits of Solitude, in sextodecimo, a distinctively small format in which a single sheet is folded in half four times to make 16 leaves. The resulting thick and squat book was not typical of private press editions, which were usually larger and more ornate, and Ashbee referred to the series as his ‘little dumpy Puritans’. He did, however, value the ideas contained within them. Like Ashbee himself, these Quaker and Puritan authors were concerned with the health and safety of labourers and advocated a simple lifestyle.