"INDISPENSABLE AS A SOURCE FOR BUNYAN'S EARLY LIFE AND CONVERSION": SCARCE 1692 EDITION OF BUNYAN'S GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS

BUNYAN, John. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: or, A brief and faithful relation of the exceeding mercy of God in Christ to His poor servant John Bunyan. Namely, in his taking of him out of the dunghil, and converting of him to the faith of his blessed son, Jesus Christ… Corrected, and much enlarged now by the author, for the benefit of the tempted and dejected Christian. London: Robert Ponder, 1692. 12mo, 20th-century full black sheep.

Seventh edition, first published in 1666, of Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography, "a defense of his ministerial calling and an aid to his converts as they struggled to remain loyal to their nonconformist convictions."

Grace Abounding "was to be a defense of his ministerial calling and an aid to his converts as they struggled to remain loyal to their nonconformist convictions. With its vivid recounting—and thus reliving—of his battle with spiritual doubt and depression, the book could only have been written once Bunyan had overcome the despair that threatened to engulf him during the early years of his incarceration. Although conventional in structure, Grace Abounding transcends contemporary examples of the genre in its depth of psychological experience, its riveting account of Bunyan's struggle to keep from succumbing to pervasive, numbing despair, and his agonizing wrestling with biblical texts. He was, of course, a prisoner of his memory no less than of the state, and his recollection of distant events and chronology is sometimes imprecise. Allowance must also be made for his undoubted tendency to exaggerate, as when he depicted himself as the greatest of sinners, a deliberate attempt to associate himself (here and elsewhere) with the apostle Paul. Indispensable as a source for Bunyan's early life and conversion, Grace Abounding also reveals much about Bunyan in the mid-1660s, especially his renewed triumph over despair and his state of spiritual assurance" (ODNB). Two editions were published in 1692 by Ponder which both stated they were the seventh edition, one of 178 pages, and this of 203 pages. This edition is recorded by ESTC in only one other copy (Regent's Park, Oxford), which also lacks two leaves. The other edition is recorded in eight copies (albeit likely with some mis-identification between the editions). Without A1 (portrait frontispiece) and A4 (part of preface); with the two-page catalogue of Bunyan's works at rear.
ESTC R504773.

Front free endpaper with repaired tear, light soiling, staining and minor handling wear to contents, a few leaves with closed tears touching text, some headings shaved with terminal leaf reinforced in gutter. A very good copy of a scarce book.