What pen name did C.S. Lewis use for his first published book of poetry?

C.S. Lewis used the pen name Clive Hamilton for his first published poetry collection, Spirits in Bondage. The book appeared in 1919, when Lewis was still a young man and was serving in the British Army after the First World War.

The pseudonym combined his first name with his mother’s maiden name, Hamilton. Lewis had originally been known in childhood as “Jack,” a nickname he adopted after the death of his childhood dog. His later literary identity, C.S. Lewis, became far more famous than Clive Hamilton.

Spirits in Bondage reflects the darker, skeptical outlook Lewis held before his Christian conversion. Readers sometimes mistake Clive Hamilton for a separate poet, but it was Lewis himself. His second poetry collection, Dymer, was published in 1926 under the name Clive Hamilton as well.