Which C.S. Lewis book is his autobiography about childhood, education, and conversion?

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

Published in 1955, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life recounts Lewis’s childhood in Belfast, his education, his experiences during the First World War, and the development of his religious beliefs. It focuses especially on the experiences Lewis called “Joy,” a sudden longing or desire that he associated with glimpses of transcendence.

Lewis describes moving from childhood Christianity to atheism and then back toward Christian belief. He became a theist in 1930 and returned to Christianity in 1931. The book ends before the later public fame brought by Narnia and many of his apologetic works.

The title is sometimes mistaken for a general devotional book. It is an autobiography, although Lewis uses episodes from his life to discuss imagination, desire, literature, and faith. A Grief Observed, by contrast, concerns his response to Joy Davidman’s death.