The Four Loves was published by C.S. Lewis in 1960 as a study of four kinds of love.
The book examines affection, friendship, eros, and charity, using both philosophical reflection and Christian theology. Lewis draws on the distinction between Greek terms for different forms of love, while also warning that every form of human love can become distorted when treated as an absolute.
Affection is associated with natural fondness, friendship with shared interests and companionship, and eros with romantic or sexual love. Charity, or agape, represents self-giving love and occupies the highest place in Lewis’s Christian framework.
The work developed from a 1958 BBC radio broadcast series called The Four Loves. It is not a novel and should not be confused with Lewis’s fictional books about Narnia or his Space Trilogy.