Was John Bunyan a Gipsy?

One of English literature's most beloved authors may have belonged to a despised minority. This is the audacious claim James Simson advances in this 1882 work, examining whether John Bunyan, the tinker-preacher who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, possessed Romani ancestry. Simson builds his case from fragments: Bunyan's own description of his background as "meanest and most despised," the presence of Romani communities in 17th-century Bedfordshire, and what he sees as scholarly bias against acknowledging such connections. More than a biographical puzzle, the book functions as advocacy. Simson uses Bunyan's possible heritage as a bridge to demand recognition for the Romani people, arguing that prejudice, not evidence, drives the scholarly establishment's refusal to entertain the theory. The result is a strange, stirring artifact: part literary detective work, part Victorian social reform treatise, and an earnest plea for dignity extended to a marginalized people.