What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s autobiographical book about discovering joy?

C.S. Lewis’s autobiographical book about discovering joy is titled Surprised by Joy. The book was published in 1955 and recounts important stages in Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development.

Lewis uses the word “joy” in a specialized sense. He describes sudden, intense longings prompted by experiences such as literature, nature, and imagination. These moments were not simply ordinary happiness; they were desires that seemed to point beyond themselves and then disappeared when he tried to possess them directly.

The memoir traces Lewis’s movement from childhood belief through atheism and eventually back to Christianity. It discusses his reading, his education, his service in the First World War, and the influence of friends including Owen Barfield and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The title is not a general phrase for a cheerful childhood. It identifies the distinctive longing Lewis considered central to his conversion story. Other Lewis works, including The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed, are theological or reflective books but are not his autobiography of this period.