Screwtape is the senior demon who writes to his nephew in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters.
Published in book form in 1942, The Screwtape Letters is a satirical Christian work presented as correspondence from Screwtape, an experienced tempter, to Wormwood, a younger and less successful demon. Their letters discuss methods for distracting a human subject from faith, virtue, and attention to spiritual reality.
Lewis uses the inverted perspective to expose habits such as vanity, resentment, distraction, and self-deception. The satire depends on readers recognizing that the demons’ goals are morally wrong, even when their advice sounds practical within the fictional bureaucracy of Hell.
Wormwood is Screwtape’s nephew and correspondent, not the senior speaker. The book was first published serially in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian before appearing as a volume. Lewis later wrote Screwtape Proposes a Toast, a shorter companion piece.