What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1956 novel about the face of Cupid?

Till We Have Faces was C.S. Lewis’s 1956 novel about the face of Cupid.

The novel retells the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche from the viewpoint of Orual, a princess and later queen. Its full title is Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. Lewis described it as his reworking of a classical story, but the narrative is also concerned with jealousy, self-knowledge, religious belief, and the difficulty of honest self-examination.

The title refers to the idea that people cannot truly confront one another, the gods, or themselves until they possess an honest identity rather than a mask. That theme distinguishes the novel from Lewis’s more directly didactic apologetic works.

Till We Have Faces was published in 1956 and is often regarded as Lewis’s most mature literary novel. It was not part of the Narnia series or the Space Trilogy, and its setting draws on a fictional ancient kingdom rather than modern England.