The Four Loves is C.S. Lewis’s 1960 book examining affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity.
The book developed from a BBC radio series and discusses four Greek terms used to distinguish kinds of love: storge, philia, eros, and agape. Lewis presents them as different forms of human affection while also considering how they can be distorted or transformed.
The English labels commonly associated with the four categories are affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity. “Charity” in Lewis’s framework means self-giving love and is connected with the Christian concept of agape.
The Four Loves is not a novel or a systematic theology textbook. It is a popular philosophical and Christian reflection, written in the accessible style that made Lewis widely read beyond universities. Its radio origins are sometimes overlooked because the book is usually encountered in print.