Book description
This autobiography of C. S.Lewis's early life, focusing on the
spiritual crisis which was to determine the shape of his entire life.
“In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was
God…perhaps the most dejeced and reluctant convert in all England.” Thus
C. S. Lewis describes memorably the crisis of his conversion in his
famous autobiography.
Lewis was for many years an atheist, and in Surprised by Joy he vividly
describes the spiritual quest which eventually convinced him of the
truth and reality of the Christian faith. 'He is admirably equipped to
write spiritual autobiography for the plain man, for his outstanding
gift is clarity. You can take it at two levels, as straight
autobiography, or as a kind of spiritual thriller, a detective's probing
of clue and motive that led up to his return to the Christianity he had
lost in childhood.'
Isabel Quigley, Sunday Times Born in Ireland in 1898, C. S. Lewis
gained a triple First at Oxford and was Fellow and Tutor at Magdalen
College from 1925-54, where he was a contemporary of J. R.R. Tolkien,
among others. In 1954 he became Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance
Literature at Cambridge. One of the most gifted and influential
Christian writers of our time, he is also celebrated for his Narnia
Chronicles and his literary criticism and science fiction. C. S. Lewis
died on 22 November 1963.
