Wormwood is the demon narrator’s intended reader in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.
The book consists of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood. Screwtape advises him on how to tempt and mislead a human being referred to as “the Patient.” The epistolary form lets Lewis present spiritual and moral observations through deliberately inverted demonic advice.
The work was first published in book form in 1942 after appearing in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian. Lewis later wrote a preface explaining some of the difficulties created by the book’s fictional viewpoint and its use of evil characters as speakers.
A frequent mix-up is to name Screwtape as the intended reader. Screwtape is the writer of the letters, while Wormwood is the junior tempter receiving them. Lewis later added “Screwtape Proposes a Toast,” a related piece that appeared separately before being included with the letters in some editions.