Which C.S. Lewis book was his first published work?

C.S. Lewis’s first published book was Spirits in Bondage. It appeared in 1919 under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton, while Lewis was still a young man.

The volume is a collection of poems rather than a novel or theological treatise. Its poems explore suffering, captivity, nature, death, and religious doubt. The title reflects the work’s recurring imagery of confinement and spiritual struggle.

Lewis had written poetry before Spirits in Bondage, and he continued to value verse throughout his life. His early literary interests included classical mythology, medieval literature, and the poetry of authors such as William Butler Yeats.

Readers sometimes identify The Pilgrim’s Regress as his first book because it was his first major prose work after his Christian conversion. Chronologically, however, Spirits in Bondage came first, published decades before his best-known fiction and apologetics.