What is the name of C.S. Lewis’s memoir about his conversion and spiritual journey?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s memoir about his conversion and spiritual journey.

Published in 1955, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life traces Lewis’s childhood, education, intellectual development, and movement from atheism toward Christianity. The title refers to Lewis’s idea of “joy,” a distinctive longing or desire that he associated with moments of intense imaginative and spiritual awareness.

The memoir ends before covering every detail of Lewis’s later public career. It focuses especially on his early reading, his relationship with his brother Warren, his education, his service in the First World War, and his changing beliefs. Lewis became a theist in 1930 and returned to Christianity in 1931.

Readers sometimes confuse this book with A Grief Observed, which concerns Lewis’s response to the death of his wife, Joy Davidman. The word “joy” in the memoir’s title is a spiritual and emotional concept, not primarily a reference to his future wife.