What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1955 autobiography about his conversion?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s 1955 autobiography about his conversion.

The book traces Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development from childhood through his return to Christianity. It describes his early imaginative experiences, his movement toward atheism, his study of literature and philosophy, and the influence of friendships with writers such as Owen Barfield and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Lewis became a theist in 1930 and returned to Christianity in 1931. Surprised by Joy presents that journey through the idea of “joy,” which Lewis used for a recurring experience of intense longing or desire. The title does not mean simple happiness; it refers to a distinctive form of imaginative yearning.

The autobiography ends before Lewis’s most famous public writing and does not provide a complete account of his later career. A Grief Observed instead concerns the death of his wife, while Mere Christianity develops arguments from his wartime broadcasts and other Christian teaching.