Screwtape is the fictional demon who writes the letters in C.S. Lewis's 1942 satire.
The Screwtape Letters presents advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood. The letters describe attempts to tempt a human referred to as “the Patient.” Lewis reverses the usual moral viewpoint so that demonic strategies expose human weaknesses such as distraction, vanity, resentment, and self-deception.
The book was published in 1942 and became one of Lewis's most popular works. Its epistolary form lets Lewis present short arguments and observations without using a conventional narrator. The satire depends on readers recognizing that the demons' goals are the opposite of moral and spiritual health.
Wormwood is the nephew and recipient, not the letter writer. This is the main naming confusion surrounding the book. Screwtape is the senior tempter whose correspondence gives the work its title.