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Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis, San Francisco Harper, 2001, 6x9" softbound, 224 pages.

A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation--and triumph over it--ever written.

Review Excerpts:

I first read The Screwtape Letters in high school English class. It worried me. I still believed humanity was basically good, and was skeptical of the existence of angels, demons and the spiritual world. This book made me interested enough to make religion and spirituality a topic of study for much of my college career. Examining the wide range of beliefs on the subject that have existed throughout history, and the many 'new' ones that are popular in our time, I came to the conclusion that it was all just myth except perhaps the 'moral' aspect that seemed to run through most of the major religions. Having grown up more on the philosophies of Carl Sagan's COSMOS than anything else, I quickly found myself taking refuge in science and humanism, allowing me to dismiss speculation on any 'unseen realities' that could not be proven. It was not long before I realized that science, though it has made the world a better place in some respects by improving the quality of life (for some, though not all), it had failed to make people into better people. . . . The Screwtape Letters addresses not only good and evil per se, but makes the reader wonder where many of his thoughts and beliefs come from. As an unbeliever and a skeptic, I was forced to rethink many of my preconceptions about life, especially the existence of God and His interaction in history. This book is a classic analysis of the human condition from a Christian perpective, but the demon's logic is stunning." --Tony Ham

"Lewis's satire is a Christian classic. Screwtape is a veteran demon in the service of "Our Father Below" whose letters to his nephew and prot g , Wormwood, instruct the demon-in-training in the fine points of leading a new Christian astray. Lewis's take on human nature is as on-target as it was when the letters were first published in 1941. John Cleese's narration is perfect as he takes Screwtape from emotional height to valley, from tight control to near apoplexy. This will be a popular in most libraries." --Nann Blaine Hilyard, Lake Villa Distict Library, Illinois, Library Journal

Title: Screwtape Letters

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