What is the name of C.S. Lewis’s memoir about his conversion to Christianity?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s memoir about his movement toward Christianity.

Published in 1955, the book describes Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development, including his childhood imagination, education, military service, literary interests, and changing religious views. The title comes from Lewis’s idea of “Joy,” a powerful experience of longing or desire that he associated with glimpses of something beyond ordinary satisfaction.

Lewis had been raised in the Church of Ireland but became an atheist during his adolescence. His later return to Christianity developed gradually, influenced by reflection, reading, and conversations with fellow writers and academics. He became a theist in the late 1920s and a Christian in the early 1930s, though the memoir presents the journey as complex rather than as a single sudden event.

Surprised by Joy is sometimes confused with A Grief Observed, which records Lewis’s anguish after his wife Joy Davidman’s death. The two books are autobiographical, but only Surprised by Joy focuses on Lewis’s early life and conversion.