LEWIS, C. S. (1898-1963). The Screwtape Letters, London, 1942. 8vo, Half title, original black cloth (without the dust-jacket). FIRST EDITION. RARE.

LEWIS, C. S. (1898-1963).  The Screwtape Letters. London: Geoffrey Bles, [February] 1942. 8vo (185 x 120mm). Half title (the title inconspicuously torn at the head without loss of letters, short tear without loss at the head of pp.60-61, a few isolated spots). Original black cloth, original printed paper label on the spine (some light rubbing to the extremities, some very light staining to the upper cover, without the dust-jacket). Provenance: "Tillett" (small signature on front free endpaper). FIRST EDITION of the book that launched the career of the author as a popular theologian and Christian apologist. It bears a printed dedication to his fellow "Inkling" J. R. R. Tolkien. Brown In Pursuit of C. S. Lewis. Adventures in Collecting his Works (2006) 18: "The Screwtape Letters, originally published serially in The Guardian, a religious magazine, comprise 31 letters on temptation from Screwtape, an elderly devil in Hell's civil service, to his nephew Wormwood, whose 'patient' is a young Englishman recently converted to Christianity." RARE.