What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s autobiography about his return to Christianity?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s autobiography about his intellectual and spiritual development.

Published in 1955, the book traces Lewis’s childhood, education, literary interests, movement away from Christianity, and eventual return to belief. The narrative focuses especially on experiences of intense longing that Lewis associated with the idea of “joy.”

The title does not describe a single event or a conventional happiness memoir. Lewis used “joy” as a distinctive desire or longing, often triggered by literature, nature, and imagination. He connected that longing with his developing understanding of religious belief.

Surprised by Joy is sometimes confused with Lewis’s later reflections on grief after Joy Davidman’s death. Those reflections were published as A Grief Observed in 1961. It is also different from Mere Christianity, a work of Christian apologetics developed from wartime broadcasts and not an autobiography.