What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s final completed novel, published in 1945?

That Hideous Strength is C.S. Lewis’s final completed novel, published in 1945.

The book concludes Lewis’s Space Trilogy, following Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Unlike the earlier novels, much of its action takes place on Earth and centers on an organization seeking to use science and institutional power to reshape humanity.

The novel combines speculative fiction, satire, Arthurian themes, and Christian moral ideas. Its title comes from a line by the sixteenth-century English poet and clergyman Thomas Traherne, quoted in the book’s epigraph.

That Hideous Strength is also notable for its engagement with modern technological ambition and the possibility that claims of progress can conceal the pursuit of control. Its large cast and mixture of genres make it one of Lewis’s more complex and demanding novels.