What pen name did C.S. Lewis use for poetry published in 1919?

C.S. Lewis used the pen name Clive Hamilton for poetry published in 1919.

The name appeared on Spirits in Bondage, Lewis’s first published book. The volume was issued while he was still a young man and was shaped by the experience and disillusionment of the First World War. Its poems explore suffering, nature, myth, and doubts about traditional religious ideas.

Lewis chose “Clive Hamilton” rather than publishing under his familiar nickname, Jack, or his legal name, Clive Staples Lewis. The book’s authorship was later widely recognized, but the pseudonym remains an important detail in accounts of his literary beginnings. In 1926, he used another name, N.W. Clerk, for a philosophical poem.

Spirits in Bondage should not be confused with Dymer, which was published in 1926 under the N.W. Clerk name. Neither title is one of Lewis’s later Christian apologetic works, and both belong to his early poetic career.