What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1933 allegorical novel about an atheist’s spiritual journey?

C.S. Lewis’s 1933 allegorical novel about an atheist’s spiritual journey is The Pilgrim’s Regress.

The full title is The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism. Lewis published it soon after his conversion to Christianity, and the book reflects his attempt to describe the intellectual and imaginative path that led him away from atheism.

The protagonist, John, travels through a symbolic landscape while encountering figures and places that represent ideas, temptations, philosophies, and religious positions. The structure deliberately recalls John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, but Lewis’s book addresses modern debates and his own intellectual concerns.

The novel is not the same work as Mere Christianity, which developed from wartime radio broadcasts, or Surprised by Joy, Lewis’s later autobiographical account of his intellectual and spiritual development. The Pilgrim’s Regress is fiction, but its allegory draws heavily on Lewis’s personal conversion experience and literary interests.