Which C.S. Lewis book discusses the death of his wife under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk?

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A Grief Observed discusses the death of C.S. Lewis’s wife and was first published under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk.

Lewis wrote the book after the death of Joy Davidman, whom he had married. It records his grief, anger, doubt, and changing understanding of suffering in a direct series of reflections. The original 1961 edition used the name N.W. Clerk rather than Lewis’s own name.

The pseudonym helped create distance between the intensely personal text and the author’s public identity. After Lewis’s death, later editions were issued under his name, and the work became widely known as A Grief Observed.

It is often grouped with Lewis’s Christian apologetics, but its tone is more personal and questioning than works such as Mere Christianity. The book is also distinct from Surprised by Joy, which is an account of his early life and intellectual development.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Oct. 2026

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