Which 1943 C.S. Lewis book examines the problem of suffering?

The Problem of Pain is C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book examining suffering.

Published in 1940, The Problem of Pain addresses why an all-powerful and loving God might permit pain, suffering, and evil. Lewis discusses topics including divine goodness, human freedom, sin, animal pain, Heaven, and Hell from a Christian apologetic perspective.

The date in the question is deliberately important: The Problem of Pain was published in 1940, not 1943. The year 1943 is associated with another major Lewis title, The Abolition of Man. This distinction helps separate two books that are often grouped together in discussions of Lewis’s wartime writing.

The Problem of Pain is a work of theological argument rather than a novel. It is also different from A Grief Observed, which Lewis wrote after Joy Davidman’s death and which focuses on personal bereavement. Lewis later acknowledged that abstract arguments about suffering could feel different when confronted by direct loss.