Which 1933 C.S. Lewis book retells his spiritual journey as an allegory?

The Pilgrim’s Regress is C.S. Lewis’s 1933 allegorical retelling of his spiritual journey.

The book follows a character named John as he travels through a landscape filled with philosophical, cultural, and religious obstacles. Its title deliberately echoes John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, but Lewis’s work reflects twentieth-century debates about modernity, reason, morality, and Christianity.

Lewis wrote the book after returning to Christianity, and it was his first published work of prose fiction. He initially published it with the subtitle An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism. The phrase “romanticism” refers to Lewis’s powerful longing for joy and beauty, which he later explored more directly in Surprised by Joy.

Some readers find the allegory difficult because many figures and places represent ideas rather than ordinary characters. It remains important as an early map of Lewis’s intellectual development and as a bridge between his autobiography and later imaginative fiction.