[PW] Bunyan and de Geideville -- and Ms Curt.

[Peter Macinnis]

This is curiosity.

Source: 306 of 'Scientific American', November 5, 1859:

LITERARY LARCENY.—An extraordinary statement is in circulation in London 
respecting the 'Pilgrim’s Progress', namely, that this celebrated work 
was not written by John Bunyan, but that the entire story is made up 
from an ancient manuscript. Miss Catherine Isabella Curt has published a 
translation, from a French manuscript (in the British Museum), of the 
“Pylegremage of the Sowle,’ by G. de Geideville, a churchman who 
flourished in the fifteenth century. A translation of the original work 
was printed by Caxton in 1483, and Bunyan's 'Pilgrims Progress' is said 
to be nearly a verbatim copy of that extremely rare book.

(NOTE: The source is Cornell's 'Making of America'.  I used their OCR 
and corrected it from an image file.  The names are all double-checked.)

I have failed, so far, to trace any Web reference to this claim, or to 
de Geideville or to Ms Curt, and I am wondering (no more than that) what 
happened to the claim -- or even where it was made.  The local Proquest 
Historical Papers has nothing on de Geideville, there is no mention of 
this "scandal" in "The Times".

Ah well, at least it's in the archives now.

cheers


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