Elwin Ransom visits Venus in C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra. Published in 1943, the book is the second volume of Lewis’s Space Trilogy, also known as the Ransom Trilogy.
In the novel, Venus is presented through the name Perelandra. Ransom reaches the planet and encounters a newly created world covered largely by oceans and floating islands. The story explores temptation, free will, obedience, and the possibility of a planetary fall into evil.
The book follows Out of the Silent Planet, in which Ransom travels to Mars, called Malacandra. The final volume, That Hideous Strength, returns to Earth and shifts toward a conflict involving scientific and political power. Because all three novels feature Ransom and speculative planetary settings, readers can easily mix up their destinations.
Lewis’s treatment of Venus is literary and theological rather than a scientific description of the real planet. The actual Venus has an extremely dense carbon-dioxide atmosphere and surface temperatures far beyond those of Earth, unlike the habitable imagined world of Perelandra.