Which myth provides the basic story for C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces?

Cupid and Psyche provides the basic story for C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. Published in 1956, the novel reworks the ancient myth from Apuleius’s Metamorphoses through the perspective of Orual, a princess in the fictional kingdom of Glome.

In the classical story, Psyche is taken to a mysterious husband whom she is forbidden to look at, and her curiosity leads to a series of trials. Lewis preserves recognizable elements of that pattern but changes the setting, narrative voice, and psychological emphasis.

The title refers to the novel’s concern with identity, self-knowledge, accusation, and the masks people present to one another. Lewis regarded the book as one of his most mature works, and its treatment of myth differs from the more overtly adventurous style of the Narnia books.

Readers sometimes describe the novel simply as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but its direct literary source is the Cupid and Psyche myth. The relationship to Apuleius is central to understanding Lewis’s adaptation.