What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1933 autobiographical allegory?

C.S. Lewis’s 1933 autobiographical allegory was The Pilgrim’s Regress. Its full title is The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism.

The book follows a character named John as he travels through a symbolic landscape. The journey reflects Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development, including his movement from skepticism toward Christianity.

Lewis published the work soon after his conversion to Christianity, but it was not an immediate commercial success. Its dense symbolism and references to philosophy, theology, and contemporary intellectual movements make it less accessible than some of his later books.

Readers often confuse it with Surprised by Joy, Lewis’s later autobiography, published in 1955. The Pilgrim’s Regress is fictionalized allegory, whereas Surprised by Joy presents a more direct account of Lewis’s intellectual and religious journey.