What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1955 autobiographical book about his religious journey?
Answer
Surprised by Joy
Surprised by Joy was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1955 autobiographical book about his religious journey.
In Surprised by Joy, Lewis describes experiences that shaped his intellectual and spiritual development, including childhood imagination, literary influences, education, and his movement from atheism toward Christianity. The book focuses on what Lewis called “joy,” a powerful and elusive longing connected with moments of imaginative or emotional intensity.
The work is an autobiography of conversion, but it is not a complete life story. Lewis wrote other books that discuss Christian belief more directly, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. A Grief Observed, published in 1961, instead reflects on grief after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman.