We will return to the question of the Screwtape Preface presently, where Lewis prepares the reader in a creative way to read these pieces of demonic epistolary fiction. Lewis.įrom May 2 to Nov 28, 1941, the letters were published serially–a weekly burst of creativity and artistry that focussed the spiritual life during a period of fear, worry, violence, and loss. On Apr 25, 1941, the editor of The Guardian announced an upcoming series called The Screwtape Letters by C.S. When he had finished the letters (as far as I can tell), he submitted them as a package to The Guardian, an Anglican paper where Lewis published other WWII-era essays. How Screwtape was Introduced to the World What is clear is that from July 1940 into the spring of 1941, Lewis wrote Screwtape by hand, perhaps completing one letter a week (Sayer, Jack, 273). You can read the whole story of Screwtape’s imaginative beginnings here, where I also try to clear up some complications in the scholarly storyline. The upside-down pattern of spiritual direction-the “other point of view” that is critical to the genius of Screwtape-was born in that moment. be to give all the psychology of temptation from the other point of view.” (Hooper, Letters 2, 427). be called As one Devil to Another and would consist of letters from an elderly retired devil to a young devil who has just started work on his first “patient.” The idea wd. I think might be both useful and entertaining. wish these things came more seasonably-I was struck by an idea for a book wh. He wrote about the experience to his brother: While Lewis found this clergyman boring, during that very sermon he was struck by an idea for the book. With some reluctance, Lewis sat through a sermon preached by Rev. A couple of days later, Lewis slipped into church on Sunday morning after a few weeks’ absence due to illness and fatigue. Lewis listened to Hitler’s strangely compelling speech to the Reichstag on the radio in the summer of 1940 in that first volatile year of WWII. Though it is now a work of great renown, The Screwtape Letters had a humble beginning in the imagination of an Oxford don in summer vacation during “unprecedented times.”Ĭ.S. It was also the book that provided for me an entirely new adventure of faith and scholarship that has carried me through all the years since. Lewis into international fame as a Christian controversialist and public intellectual. After all, it was this collection of demonic letters that catapulted C.S. As it has been a decade since I gave my last “ Nefarious Nod to our Favourite Degenerate Demon” at the 70th, I thought I would catch readers up on all things Screwtape in the years between. Today is the 80th anniversary of the publication of The Screwtape Letters in book form in the UK.
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