Which C.S. Lewis book tells the story of his conversion from atheism to Christianity?

Surprised by Joy tells the story of C.S. Lewis’s conversion from atheism to Christianity. Published in 1955, it is an autobiographical account of Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development.

The book describes Lewis’s childhood imagination, his loss of religious belief, his experiences in the First World War, and his return to theism and Christianity. He presents conversion as a long process rather than a single isolated event.

Lewis became a theist in 1930 and returned to Christian belief in 1931. He later described conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson as important in his movement toward Christianity, particularly discussions about myth and the possibility that Christian belief could be both intellectually serious and imaginatively powerful.

The title refers to joy as Lewis used the term for an intense longing or desire. It is not simply a conventional memoir of happiness, and it should not be confused with A Grief Observed, which concerns his wife’s death.