Which 1963 book by C.S. Lewis reflects on grief after his wife’s death?

C.S. Lewis’s 1963 book about grief after his wife’s death is A Grief Observed. Lewis wrote it following the death of Joy Davidman, who died of cancer in 1960. The book presents an intense, candid account of mourning, doubt, anger, and the difficulty of reconciling suffering with religious belief.

Lewis first published the work under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk. The disguise allowed him to write about deeply personal experiences without immediately presenting the book as an autobiographical confession. The pseudonym was later revealed, and the book is now read as one of Lewis’s most personal works.

A Grief Observed differs sharply in tone from Lewis’s more systematic Christian apologetics. It does not offer a neat argument that resolves grief. Instead, it records changing thoughts and emotions during bereavement. The book’s publication date is 1963, the same year Lewis died, although the writing was completed earlier.