What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s autobiographical book about his conversion?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s autobiographical book about his conversion.

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

The book ends its main account with Lewis’s conversion to Christianity rather than providing a complete record of his later life. Lewis became a theist in 1930 and a Christian in 1931, after conversations and arguments involving friends such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.

Readers sometimes confuse this memoir with A Grief Observed, which concerns Lewis’s grief after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman. The two books address very different periods and subjects.