Under what pen name did C.S. Lewis publish Spirits in Bondage in 1919?

C.S. Lewis published Spirits in Bondage in 1919 under the pen name Clive Hamilton. The volume was a collection of poems, and using a pseudonym allowed the young author to present the work separately from his established personal identity.

Lewis was only 20 when the book appeared. Its subtitle, A Cycle of Lyrics, signals the book’s poetic structure and recurring themes, including suffering, confinement, doubt, and the search for meaning.

The name Clive Hamilton was not Lewis’s only literary identity. His given name was Clive Staples Lewis, and he was commonly known as Jack among friends and family. Later works, including his Christian apologetics and fiction, were published under C.S. Lewis.

The book is sometimes remembered mainly because of its author’s later fame. It actually predates Lewis’s conversion to Christianity and comes from an earlier stage of his intellectual and poetic development.