About As One Devil to Another

Inspired by C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, As One Devil to Another – which in fact was the working title for Screwtape - is a fiendish correspondence in which a senior devil, Slashreap, instructs a junior devil, Scardagger, in the Gentle Art of Temptation; of guiding a human soul – their client – through the gates of Hell. The Adversary, of course, is God. Thus, As One Devil to Another is a kind of photographic negative: the whites are black and the blacks are white. The Devil looks out on the modern world and sees that it is ‘good’.

As One Devil to Another is prefaced by Walter Hooper, the world’s leading authority on the life and works of C. S. Lewis. Mr. Hooper writes

This is the book I thought I would never see. This is the preface I thought I would never write.

As One Devil to Another is a stunning achievement, the finest example of the genre of diabolical correspondence to appear since this genre was popularized by C. S. Lewis. While the tone is sharper than anything from Lewis’ pen, it is surely the tone he would have used had he lived to see the abyss of moral relativism we endure today.

The narrative voice of As One Devil to Another is almost indistinguishable from Lewis’ own. It reads as if Lewis himself had written it. There are many passages which Lewis could not have done better. I shake my head even now as I write this, still not quite believing it myself, but each time I return to this astonishing little book I see that it is so. As One Devil to Another has the stamp of something that was not crafted, but bestowed.

As the dedication indicates so fittingly, this is a work of homage. Many books have been written about Lewis and his work. This is the first book to take Lewis’ work and move it forward. It is my hope that As One Devil to Another will find a wide readership and ultimately lead a new generation to Lewis. He would have been delighted to have a pupil who had learned so well.

Among the topics Slashreap discusses are Academia, Arrogance, Atheists, Cellular Phones, Chance, Competition, Creation, Damnation, Death and Life, Divine Intent, Doubt, Failure, Faith, Fools, Good Work, Grace, Gratitude, Grief, Happiness, Hell, Homosexuality, Humility, Injustice, Innocence, the Internet, Literacy, Literary Criticism, the Lord’s Prayer, Love, Modern Art, Narcissism, Prayer, Pharisees, Political Correctness, the Problem of Pain, Reality Television, the Scientific Ethos, the Sexual Revolution, Television, Virtual Reality, Wealth, and Yes-Men.

As One Devil to Another is, if nothing else, a work of great compression.