Which Christian allegorical novel by C.S. Lewis was published in 1945?

The Great Divorce is the Christian allegorical novel by C.S. Lewis published in 1945. It presents a narrator’s fantastical journey from a grim, shadowy place to the outskirts of Heaven.

The book explores choices about desire, repentance, pride, and salvation through conversations between visitors and beings representing Heaven. Lewis uses imaginative scenes rather than a conventional theological treatise, allowing abstract ideas to appear as concrete encounters.

The title alludes to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but Lewis reverses Blake’s emphasis by portraying a separation rather than a union. The work is also related to Lewis’s interest in Dante and in literary visions of the afterlife.

The Great Divorce is often confused with Mere Christianity because both are major Christian works by Lewis. Mere Christianity is a nonfiction presentation of Christian belief, while The Great Divorce is a short imaginative narrative built around an allegorical journey.