Which C.S. Lewis book is a memoir about his conversion and intellectual development?

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’s memoir about his conversion and intellectual development.

Published in 1955, the book traces Lewis’s childhood, education, changing beliefs, military service, and movement from atheism toward Christianity. It is not a complete conventional autobiography; instead, it focuses on experiences of intense longing or “joy” and on the ideas that shaped his religious outlook.

Lewis records several important stages in his development, including his return to belief in God and his later embrace of Christianity. He became a theist in 1930 and a Christian in 1931, after conversations and friendships that included other Oxford intellectuals.

The title refers to a distinctive kind of desire rather than ordinary happiness. Lewis connected this longing with experiences in literature, nature, and imagination. Readers should not confuse the memoir with A Grief Observed, which addresses bereavement after the death of his wife.