In C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, what name is given to the planet Venus?

In C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, the planet Venus is called Perelandra.

Perelandra is the name Lewis gives to Venus in the second novel of the trilogy, also titled Perelandra. The book follows philologist Elwin Ransom as he travels to the planet and encounters a newly created world facing a temptation that echoes the biblical account of humanity’s fall.

Lewis’s planetary names are part of the trilogy’s invented cosmology. Mars is called Malacandra, Earth is Thulcandra, and Venus is Perelandra. These names can be confusing because the novels use both traditional astronomical identities and Lewis’s fictional terminology.

The novel was published in 1943, following Out of the Silent Planet and preceding That Hideous Strength. Its setting combines space travel, Christian theology, speculative fiction, and mythic imagery, making the planetary name a central feature of the story’s world-building.