ABSTRACT
During the Second World War I was commuting each day from the far western edge of Cleveland to the heart of that city. It meant that there was nearly an hour of travel each morning and evening that could be devoted to reading. As a result I fell into the habit of looking over the shelves of new books which came into the library where I worked with the idea of finding some comfortable reading for the boresome daily journey. In this mood I was struck one afternoon by a title which seemed almost to leer out at me from the top shelf… The Screwtape Letters. I took the book with me that afternoon, and during the long bus ride home and dinner I read it through entirely. I was caught up at once in its quick and incisive brilliance. Its sly, biting, insidious wit soon had my mind in a whirl, as the author stripped away the nonsense in which we garb so many of our thoughts, and left me laughing at my own idiocies, something more than half ashamed of my own weaknesses, and wanting to turn away a little from his sharp, probing scrutiny.
