Screwtape is the demon narrator of C.S. Lewis’s 1942 novel The Screwtape Letters.
The book takes the form of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his nephew Wormwood. Screwtape offers advice on tempting a human subject, whom he calls “the Patient.” Lewis uses this reversed perspective to examine pride, distraction, habit, resentment, and other moral weaknesses.
Wormwood is the recipient rather than the narrator. That distinction is one of the most common points of confusion when people summarize the book. The letters’ fictional correspondence lets Lewis discuss Christian ethics indirectly, often with irony and dark humor.
Lewis wrote the work during the Second World War, and it first appeared in serialized form in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian before being published as a book. The unusual format made the work memorable, while its themes gave it a readership far beyond the immediate wartime setting. It remains one of Lewis’s most frequently cited works of Christian apologetics and moral reflection.