The Pilgrim's Regress

Blurb

The Pilgrim's Regress is a book of allegorical fiction by C. S. Lewis. This 1933 novel was Lewis's first published work of prose fiction, and his third piece of work to be published. It charts the progress of a fictional character named John through a philosophical landscape in search of the Island of his desire. Lewis described the novel to his publisher as "a kind of Bunyan up to date," in reference to John Bunyan's 17th century novel The Pilgrim's Progress, recast with the politics, ideologies, philosophy, and aesthetic principles of the early 20th century. As such, the character struggles with the modern phoniness, hypocrisy, and intellectual vacancy of the Christian church, Communism, Fascism, and various philosophical and artistic movements.
John the pilgrim journeys, in a manner like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, in search of the Island of his desire, for which his longing is never quite forgotten even though he has received but a glimpse of it. Like the Pilgrim in Bunyan's allegory, John meets a fellow traveller, in this case called Vertue, and the two journey together.