Bunyan’s crime only carried a three-month sentence, but since he refused to quit preaching, he eventually spent more than 12 years behind bars. In 1660, he was arrested and confined to jail in Bedford. Along with drawing crowds and followers, Bunyan’s stirring sermons soon drew the ire of the monarchy, which considered it illegal for him to hold religious gatherings that did not conform to the Anglican Church. Originally a tinker by trade, England’s John Bunyan first made his name in the late-1650s, when he found religion and became a popular separatist preacher. The autobiography remained unreleased until 1994 when Mandela used it to help shape his famous book “Long Walk to Freedom.” 4. Guards eventually discovered it, but by then, Maharaj and others had been freed and smuggled the transcript out with them. After completing the book, Mandela buried the original copy in the prison garden. Fellow inmates offered criticism and suggestions, and a prisoner named Mac Maharaj painstakingly transcribed Mandela’s manuscript into tiny text to save space. In 1974, while confined to an 8-by-7-foot cell, he began secretly writing an autobiography documenting his years as an anti-apartheid activist and revolutionary. Nelson Mandela visits his former prison cell on Robben Island in February 1995.īefore he was South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela was inmate number 466/64 at Robben Island, one of three prisons in which he eventually did 27 years of hard time.

Letters and papers from prison