What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s autobiography about his conversion and intellectual journey?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s autobiography about his intellectual journey and return to Christianity.

Published in 1955, the book recounts Lewis’s childhood, education, wartime experiences, changing beliefs, and conversion. Its title refers to “joy,” a term Lewis used for an intense longing or fleeting experience of desire that he associated with imaginative and spiritual searching.

The autobiography covers his movement from childhood Christianity to atheism and then back toward theism and Christianity. It discusses books, mythology, friendships, and intellectual influences, including the importance of conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.

Surprised by Joy is not a complete account of every later period of Lewis’s life. His relationship with Joy Davidman, her illness, and his grief after her death are treated in other writings, especially A Grief Observed. The two titles are therefore often confused, but they serve different purposes.