In September 1947, after reading The Screwtape Letters in Italian, Fr. Giovanni Calabria was moved to write the author, but he knew no English, so he addressed his letter in Latin. Therein began a correspondence that was to outlive Fr. Calabria himself (he died in December 1954 and was succeeded in the correspondence by Fr. Luigi Pedrollo).Translator/editor Martin Moynihan calls these letters 'limpid, fluent and deeply refreshing. There was a charm about them, too, and not least in the way they were 'topped and tailed' -- that is, in their ever-slightly-varied formalities of address and of farewell'.
More than any other of his published works, The Latin Letters shows the strong devotional side of Lewis, and contains letters on topics ranging from Christian unity and modern European history to liturgical worship and general ethical behavior. Moreover, these letters are often intimate and personal.
