Which C.S. Lewis autobiography recounts his conversion and search for joy?

Surprised by Joy is the C.S. Lewis autobiography that recounts his conversion and search for joy.

Published in 1955, Surprised by Joy describes Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development from childhood through his return to Christianity. Its title refers to “joy” as Lewis used the term: a sudden, intense longing triggered by experiences such as literature, nature, or imagination. He distinguished this feeling from ordinary happiness and treated it as an important clue in his spiritual journey.

The book discusses Lewis’s childhood, his education, his service in the First World War, his Oxford friendships, and his movement from atheism toward Christian belief. It ends before the later years of his public fame and before his marriage to Joy Davidman.

A Grief Observed is also autobiographical, but it focuses on Lewis’s grief after Davidman’s death and was published in 1961. That distinction matters: Surprised by Joy is the conversion-and-development memoir, while A Grief Observed is a later meditation on bereavement.