The Four Loves was published by C.S. Lewis in 1960 as a study of four kinds of human love. The book discusses affection, friendship, eros, and charity, using both ordinary experience and Christian reflection.
Lewis draws on Greek terms to distinguish different forms of love, although his discussion is not a simple dictionary of Greek vocabulary. Storge describes natural affection, philia friendship, eros romantic or sexual love, and agape self-giving love, which Lewis connects with divine charity.
The work grew partly from a 1958 radio broadcast series titled The Four Loves. Lewis examines the strengths and dangers of each form, emphasizing that even good human loves can become destructive when treated as ultimate.
The book is sometimes confused with Mere Christianity because both explain Lewis’s Christian thinking in accessible prose. The Four Loves is narrower in subject: its central concern is how different loves shape relationships, character, and religious life.