What pseudonym did C.S. Lewis use for the 1930 poetry collection Spirits in Bondage?

C.S. Lewis used the pseudonym Clive Hamilton for his 1930 poetry collection Spirits in Bondage. The book was one of Lewis’s early published works and appeared before his best-known Christian and fantasy writing.

The collection reflects Lewis’s early poetic concerns, including suffering, doubt, nature, and religious questioning. At the time, Lewis had not yet become the widely recognized Christian apologist associated with Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Lewis used Clive Hamilton partly to separate his public literary identity from his personal and academic life. He later published poetry under his own initials, including the collection Poems, which appeared posthumously in 1964.

The name is easy to confuse with Lewis’s everyday nickname, Jack. Jack was the name used by friends and family, while Clive Hamilton was a publishing pseudonym. Spirits in Bondage was also originally associated with the subtitle A Cycle of Lyrics.