Which C.S. Lewis autobiography recounts his conversion and early literary life?

Surprised by Joy recounts C.S. Lewis’s conversion and early literary life.

Published in 1955, Surprised by Joy is Lewis’s spiritual autobiography. It covers his childhood, education, service in the First World War, return to academic life, and movement from atheism toward Christianity. The title refers to a recurring experience of intense longing that Lewis associated with literature, imagination, and what he later understood as spiritual desire.

The book does not provide a complete account of every stage of Lewis’s life. It ends before some of his most famous later achievements, including the publication of The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis also uses selective and interpretive storytelling rather than presenting a conventional day-by-day memoir.

The autobiography is often discussed alongside The Pilgrim’s Regress, a 1933 allegorical novel that also reflects Lewis’s intellectual and religious journey. They are different works, and Surprised by Joy is the one explicitly presenting his autobiographical development.