What fictional planet is the setting of C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra?

The fictional planet setting of C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra is Perelandra. In the novel’s wider science-fiction framework, Perelandra is also identified with Venus.

Perelandra is the second volume of Lewis’s Space Trilogy, following Out of the Silent Planet and preceding That Hideous Strength. The protagonist, Elwin Ransom, is transported to the planet, where he encounters a newly created world and a temptation that echoes the biblical story of humanity’s fall.

Lewis’s Perelandra is not simply a realistic depiction of the planet Venus. It is an imaginative, ocean-covered world with floating islands and a distinctive divine order. The setting allows Lewis to explore innocence, freedom, obedience, and the consequences of moral choice.

Malacandra, by contrast, is the name Lewis gives to Mars in Out of the Silent Planet. Glome is the kingdom in Till We Have Faces. Keeping those names separate helps distinguish the three major fictional settings in Lewis’s non-Narnian fiction.