N.W. Clerk was the pen name used for C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed.
Lewis published A Grief Observed in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk. The book consists of reflections written after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, from cancer. It presents grief in an unusually direct form, including anger, doubt, loneliness, and questions about faith rather than a polished or comforting account of mourning.
The pseudonym initially helped protect Lewis's privacy and kept readers from immediately treating the book as an authorized personal memoir. The author's identity became widely known after Lewis's death, and later editions were published under his name. The work is now recognized as one of his most personal books.
Clerk is sometimes confused with Clive Hamilton, another name Lewis used. Clive Hamilton was the pseudonym for Spirits in Bondage and Dymer, his early volumes of poetry, whereas N.W. Clerk belongs specifically to A Grief Observed.