What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1936 allegorical novel about a spiritual journey?

C.S. Lewis’s 1936 allegorical novel about a spiritual journey is The Pilgrim’s Regress.

The book was Lewis’s first published work of fiction and appeared in 1936, with the subtitle An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism. Its central character, John, travels through a symbolic landscape while encountering competing ideas and temptations.

The title deliberately echoes John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, but Lewis’s story reflects debates and intellectual movements familiar in the modern world. The allegory includes figures and places representing philosophies, ideologies and attitudes toward religion.

Readers sometimes confuse this novel with The Great Divorce, another Lewis allegory published in 1945. They are distinct works: The Pilgrim’s Regress focuses on John’s quest, while The Great Divorce presents a fantastical journey from a gray town toward heaven.