Which C.S. Lewis book presents Christianity through a fictional pilgrimage?

The Pilgrim’s Regress presents Christianity through a fictional pilgrimage.

C.S. Lewis published The Pilgrim’s Regress in 1933. Its full subtitle, An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism, signals the book’s method: it uses an allegorical journey to explore religious belief, philosophical ideas, and the desire for meaning. The protagonist, John, travels through a landscape populated by figures and places representing competing views.

The title deliberately recalls John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the famous Christian allegory published in the seventeenth century. Lewis’s work is not a retelling of Bunyan’s story, however. It reflects Lewis’s own intellectual path and his movement from atheism toward Christianity, while also engaging with modern ideologies and debates.

Readers sometimes choose Mere Christianity because it is Lewis’s best-known explanatory work on Christian belief. Mere Christianity is built from broadcast talks and argument, whereas The Pilgrim’s Regress is the book that uses a pilgrimage allegory.