What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1942 book narrated by the demon Screwtape?

The Screwtape Letters is C.S. Lewis’s 1942 book narrated by the demon Screwtape.

The book takes the form of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood. Screwtape advises Wormwood on how to tempt and mislead a human “patient,” while Lewis uses the reversed viewpoint to expose self-deception, distraction, pride, and spiritual complacency.

Lewis wrote the work during the Second World War, and its satirical form made serious theological and moral ideas accessible to a broad readership. The letters first appeared in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian in 1941 before being collected as a book in 1942.

The narrator’s perspective can confuse new readers: Screwtape is not Lewis’s spokesman. The irony depends on readers recognizing that the demons’ advice is morally corrupt. Wormwood is the junior tempter, while the human being targeted by the correspondence remains unnamed.