In C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, the demon Wormwood receives Screwtape’s advice. The book is structured as a series of letters from the senior tempter Screwtape to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood.
Wormwood has been assigned to influence a human known as “the Patient.” Instead of giving direct advice to readers, Lewis uses the imagined demonic correspondence to satirize human weakness, temptation, pride, distraction, and self-deception.
The book was first published in 1942, after appearing in the Anglican periodical The Guardian. Its unusual viewpoint lets Lewis discuss Christian moral ideas indirectly: what helps a person spiritually is often described as something the demons want to prevent.
A common mistake is to identify Screwtape as the human protagonist. He is the letter writer and senior demon, while Wormwood is his junior correspondent. The epilogue takes the fictional correspondence in a darker direction after Wormwood’s failure.