Perelandra is the C.S. Lewis novel featuring the space traveler Ransom on the planet Perelandra.
Published in 1943, Perelandra is the second book in Lewis’s Space Trilogy. Its protagonist, Dr. Elwin Ransom, travels from Earth to the planet Perelandra, which is also called Venus. There he encounters a world whose inhabitants face a temptation with echoes of the biblical story of Eden.
The novel combines planetary romance, Christian theology, philosophical speculation, and detailed descriptions of an alien environment. Lewis imagines Perelandra as a watery world containing floating islands, making its setting very different from Earth and from the Mars-like world of the first novel, Out of the Silent Planet.
Readers sometimes confuse the book with the trilogy’s opening volume because both feature Ransom. Out of the Silent Planet introduces him and takes him to Mars, while Perelandra moves the story to Venus. That distinction identifies the correct novel.