What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book of Christian apologetics about pain?

The Problem of Pain is C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book of Christian apologetics about suffering. Lewis examines why pain exists within a Christian understanding of God, human freedom, moral formation, and the possibility of hell.

The book is a systematic theological argument rather than a personal diary. Lewis wrote it before the death of Joy Davidman, and its treatment of suffering is therefore often contrasted with the much more intimate and anguished reflections in A Grief Observed, which he published after her death.

The two titles are frequently confused because both address grief, suffering, and faith. The Problem of Pain asks a general philosophical and theological question, while A Grief Observed records the author’s personal response to bereavement. Their different purposes explain their markedly different tones.