C.S. Lewis’s book The Four Loves was first published in 1960. It developed from a series of BBC radio talks and examines four Greek terms associated with different forms of human affection.
Lewis discusses storge, affection within families; philia, friendship; eros, romantic or sexual love; and agape, self-giving love. In the book’s English discussion, he often uses the Greek vocabulary to distinguish forms of love that can overlap but are not identical.
The work belongs to Lewis’s nonfiction and Christian apologetics rather than his fiction. It is often read alongside Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain, but it has a narrower focus on human relationships and the ways love can become distorted when treated as self-sufficient.
The publication year is sometimes confused with 1956, when Till We Have Faces and Surprised by Joy appeared, or with 1963, the year of Lewis’s death. The Four Loves was published in 1960, near the end of his writing career.