What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s memoir about grief after Joy Davidman’s death?

A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis’s memoir about grief after Joy Davidman’s death.

Lewis published the book in 1961, one year after Davidman died from cancer. It first appeared under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk, partly because Lewis did not want readers to treat the book as a public statement by a famous Christian author. The pseudonym was later revealed.

Written as a series of reflections and questions, the book records Lewis’s anger, doubt, loneliness, and changing understanding of mourning. Its candid tone differs from the confident apologetic style of works such as Mere Christianity. Lewis does not present grief as a simple lesson with an immediate resolution.

A Grief Observed is sometimes confused with Surprised by Joy, Lewis’s autobiography of intellectual and spiritual development. The two books are different: Surprised by Joy concerns his earlier life, while A Grief Observed focuses on bereavement after Davidman’s death.