What was the pen name used for C.S. Lewis’s 1961 book about grief?

N.W. Clerk was the pen name used for C.S. Lewis’s 1961 book about grief, A Grief Observed.

Lewis published A Grief Observed under the name N.W. Clerk after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, in 1960. The book presents a raw, questioning account of bereavement, faith, anger, loneliness, and the difficulty of understanding suffering. Its short sections resemble private journal entries more than a conventional theological treatise.

The pseudonym helped Lewis create distance from his public identity and may have protected the privacy of his grief. Later editions identified him as the author, and the book is now routinely read as one of his most personal works.

A Grief Observed is sometimes confused with The Problem of Pain, which Lewis wrote before his wife’s death as a more systematic examination of suffering. The two books address related subjects but have very different purposes, tones, and circumstances.