What was C.S. Lewis’s first published book under the name Clive Hamilton?

C.S. Lewis’s first published book under the name Clive Hamilton was Spirits in Bondage.

Published in 1919, Spirits in Bondage is a collection of poems written while Lewis was a young man. He used the pseudonym Clive Hamilton rather than his own name. The volume appeared while he was still establishing himself as a scholar and writer, long before his later fame as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia and major Christian apologetic works.

The poems reflect the influence of war, suffering, classical literature, and the pessimistic outlook Lewis held during part of his youth. Lewis had served in the First World War, and several poems reveal the atmosphere of disillusionment associated with that period. The collection therefore provides evidence of a literary voice very different from the confident Christian writer known from his later books.

Lewis’s second poetic work, Dymer, was published in 1926 under the same pseudonym. He later became better known for prose, although poetry remained part of his intellectual and literary background.