What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1942 novel narrated by a senior demon giving advice to a junior tempter?

C.S. Lewis’s 1942 novel narrated by a senior demon advising a junior tempter is The Screwtape Letters. The senior demon, Screwtape, writes letters to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood about tempting a human subject.

Lewis uses the unusual demonic viewpoint to satirize self-deception, distraction, pride, resentment, and other habits that can damage a person’s spiritual life. The letters are fictional, but their observations are framed as practical instruction from Hell.

The work first appeared in Britain during the Second World War. Lewis’s wartime experience and his Christian apologetic interests helped give the book its distinctive combination of moral commentary, irony, and dark humor.

It is often mistaken for a conventional novel with a continuous plot. Instead, it is an epistolary work made up of advice letters. The frame allows Lewis to describe ordinary human behavior indirectly by showing how a demon might exploit it.