Who wrote the 1942 epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters?

C.S. Lewis wrote the 1942 epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters.

The book is presented as a series of letters from Screwtape, an experienced demon, to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood. The correspondence discusses temptation, distraction, pride, fear, and the ways ordinary human habits can be manipulated. Lewis uses the inverted viewpoint to make readers examine moral and spiritual behavior from an unsettling angle.

The Screwtape Letters first appeared in the Anglican newspaper The Guardian in 1941 before being published as a book in 1942. Lewis dedicated the work to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, although Tolkien did not write it.

The book is often classified as satire, apologetics, or imaginative Christian fiction. It is not a conventional narrative with a continuous sequence of scenes; its letter format allows Lewis to explore ideas through advice given by a fictional tempter.