Which C.S. Lewis book presents a series of letters from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood?

The Screwtape Letters presents a series of letters from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood. C.S. Lewis published the book in 1942, during the Second World War.

Screwtape is a senior tempter who advises Wormwood on how to influence a human “patient.” By reversing the usual viewpoint of Christian moral writing, Lewis uses demonic correspondence to examine temptation, pride, distraction, resentment, and self-deception. The satire depends on readers recognizing that the demons’ advice is morally backward.

The work began as a series of letters published in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian. Lewis later collected them as a book. He dedicated the volume to J.R.R. Tolkien, though the dedication also playfully criticizes Tolkien’s reluctance to read the manuscript.

The book is not a conventional novel with a continuous human protagonist. Its epistolary structure and deliberately ironic narrator are central to how the arguments work.