What 1933 C.S. Lewis book recounts a fictional pilgrim’s journey toward faith?

The Pilgrim’s Regress, published in 1933, is C.S. Lewis’s first published work of prose fiction. Its subtitle, An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism, signals its allegorical design.

The protagonist, John, travels through a landscape representing ideas and spiritual positions. The structure recalls John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, but Lewis’s book addresses modern intellectual debates, including rationalism, materialism, and competing philosophies.

Lewis wrote the book soon after his return to Christian belief. He later said that readers found its symbolism difficult, and he added a lengthy preface to explain the intellectual background. The work is therefore both a religious allegory and a record of Lewis’s developing thought.

It is distinct from The Great Divorce, a later fantasy about a bus journey from hell.