_Bunyan and the "Visions of Heaven and Hell"_ (Vol. iii., pp. 70. 89.
289. 467.).--The work referred to by your correspondents is so
manifestly not the Composition of John Bunyan that it is extraordinary
that the title-page, which was evidently adopted to get off the book,
should ever have imposed upon anybody. The question, however, put by
your correspondents F. R. A. and N. H., as to who G. L. was, has not yet
been answered. The person referred to by these initials is the real
author of the book, who was George Larkin, a printer and author, and
great ally and friend of the redoubted John Dunton, who gives a long
character of him, in his _Life and Errors_, in his enumeration of London
printers. (See _Life and Errors_, edit. 1705, p. 326.)
"Mr. Larkin, Senior--He has been my acquaintance for Twenty years,
and the first printer I had in London. He formerly writ a _Vision
of Heaven_, &c. (which contains many nice and curious thoughts),
and has lately published an ingenious _Essay on the noble Art and
Mystery of Printing_. Mr. Larkin is my _alter ego_, or rather my
very self in a better edition."
The book itself was first published about 1690, and went through many
editions in the early part of the last century.