Which C.S. Lewis book is a 1955 autobiography about his conversion and early life?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s 1955 autobiography about his early life and conversion.

Published in 1955, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life traces Lewis’s childhood, education, intellectual development, and movement from atheism toward Christianity. The account ends around his conversion to Christianity and does not provide a complete narrative of his later public career.

The title refers to “joy,” a term Lewis used for an intense and elusive experience of longing. He associated this feeling with moments prompted by literature, imagination, and beauty, while emphasizing that joy itself was not the same as Christian faith.

Readers sometimes confuse this book with A Grief Observed, which concerns Lewis’s response to the death of Joy Davidman, or with The Pilgrim’s Regress, an allegorical novel influenced by his spiritual journey. Surprised by Joy is the autobiographical work among these titles.