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[[Category:Film and Media]]
[[Category:Film and Media]]
 
{{Infobox book
<!-- |italic title = (see above) -->
| name            = Descent Into Hell
| image            = [[File:daHEL1.jpg|200px|alt=Descent Into Hell Book Cover, written by Charles Williams]]
| image_caption    = Descent Into Hell Book Cover,<br>written by Charles Williams
| author          = Charles Williams
| title_orig      =
| translator      =
| illustrator      =
| cover_artist    =
| country          =
| language        =
| series          =
| subject          =
| genre            =
| publisher        = Faber and Faber
| publisher2      =
| pub_date        = 1937
| english_pub_date =
| media_type      = eBook<br>Paperback<br>Hardcover
| pages            = 222 Pages
| awards          =
| isbn            = 978-0802812209 <small>(Paperback)</small><br>978-1849028899 <small>(Hardcover)</small>
| oclc            =
| asin            = B00RMZDANU <small>(eBook)</small>
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}}
''For other uses of the word [[Succubus]], see [[Succubus (disambiguation)]].''
''For other uses of the word [[Succubus]], see [[Succubus (disambiguation)]].''




'''Descent Into Hell''' is a novel written by Charles Williams. In this work succubi characters including Lilith appear.


[[Image:daHEL1.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams, 1960 edition of the work.]]
'''Descent Into Hell''' is a novel written by Charles Williams, first published in 1937. In this novel, succubi, including Lilith appear in the work.


 
== Overview ==
 
== Details ==
*Title: Descent Into Hell
*Title: Descent Into Hell
*Author: Charles Williams
*Author: Charles Williams
*Format: Paperback
*Published By: Faber and Faber
*Publisher: (Originally Faber and Faber) Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.
*Length: 222 Pages
*Pages: 222
*Format: eBook, Paperback and Hardcover
*Language: English
*ASIN: B00RMZDANU <small>(eBook)</small>
*ISBN-10: 0802812201
*ISBN-10: 0802812201 <small>(Paperback)</small>
*ISBN-13: 978-0802812209
*ISBN-13: 978-0802812209 <small>(Paperback)</small>
*Release Date: (Originally 1937) January 1, 1999
*ISBN-10: 9781849028899 <small>(Hardcover)</small>
 
*ISBN-13: 978-1849028899 <small>(Hardcover)</small>
 
*Publishing Date: 1937
==Overview==
Williams is less well known than his fellow Inklings, such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Like some of them, however, he wrote a series of novels which combine elements of fantasy fiction and Christian symbolism.  Forgoing the detective fiction style of most of his earlier supernatural novels, most of the story's action is spiritual or psychological in nature. It fits the "theological thriller" description sometimes given to his works. For this reason ''Descent'' was initially rejected by publishers, though T. S. Eliot's publishing house Faber and Faber would eventually pick up the novel, as Eliot admired Williams's work, and, though he did not like ''Descent Into Hell'' as well as the earlier novels, desired to see it  printed.
 
 
==Allusions==
There are several prominent literary allusions running throughout ''Descent Into Hell''.
Battle Hill's resident poet, Peter Stanhope, frequently quotes and references William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest''.
 
Percy Bysshe Shelley's work ''Prometheus Unbound'' is also referenced repeatedly, regarding the appearance of a doppelgänger.
 
Less obvious Biblical allusions are present, as well as several references to mythology and legend, including [[Lilith]], [[Samael]], and [[succubus|succubi]].
 
 
==Summary==
The action takes place in Battle Hill, outside London<ref>C.W. may have had the town of St Albans in mind (Hadfield, 141)</ref>, amidst the townspeople's staging of a new play by Peter Stanhope.  The hill seems to reside at the crux of time, as characters from the past appear, and perhaps at a doorway to the beyond, as characters are alternately summoned heavenwards or descend into hell.


Pauline Anstruther, the heroine of the novel, lives in fear of meeting her own doppelganger, which has appeared to her throughout her life.  But Stanhope, in an action central to the author's own theology, takes the burden of her fears upon himself—Williams called this The Doctrine of Substituted Love—and enables Pauline, at long last, to face her true self.  Williams drew this idea from the biblical verse, "Ye shall bear one another's burdens:"


And so Stanhope does take the weight, with no surreptitious motive, in the most affecting scene in the novel. And Pauline, liberated, is able to accept truth.
== Plot Summary ==
Charles Williams was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian, and literary critic. Williams was a member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group at Oxford University in England, whose members included J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield.


On the other hand, Lawrence Wentworth, a local historian, finding his desire for Adela Hunt to be unrequited, falls in love instead with a spirit form of Adela, which seems to represent a kind of extreme self-love on his part. As he isolates himself more and more with this insubstantial figure, and dreams of descending a silver rope into a dark pit, Wentworth begins the descent into Hell.
Generally thought to be Williams's best novel, Descent Into Hell deals with the various forms of selfishness, and how sin brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. From beginning to end, Williams crafts a story that reads more like a theological drama which, though obscure, is deeply personal and engaged with humanity's need for communion with God and one another. Williams believed that the source of sin and alienation from God and one another is our failure to live according to "co-inherence." At the conclusion of the novel, you will understand why C.S. Lewis was drawn to Christ through this man's work.
 
 
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}




== Book Review ==
== Book Review ==
''The following review is from the Amazon.com listing in the External Links below:''
''At the time of this article's entry in the SuccuWiki, no review was available. Tera has this work on her reading list and will review it shortly.''
 
 
*Reviewed By: Doug Thorpe
 
In Charles Williams's novel Descent into Hell, Hell turns out to be nothing other than a refusal to see things as they really are. Arguably his finest novel, the "descent" in the title happens to an ordinary (if extraordinarily selfish) historian named Wentworth, whose daily choices to cheat on the truth slowly but surely lead him into a terrifying state of isolation and egotism. Heaven, by contrast, is increasingly inhabited by the novel's heroine, Pauline Anstruther, who as the book proceeds learns to face her fears (and her ancestors!) and to love the truth exactly as it is. The plot turns around the latest production of fictional playwright Peter Stanhope, but for Williams Pauline's realization of the divine glory incarnate in all of life is the deeper truth that sustains this and every other drama.
 
 
==References==
 
* Hadfield, Alice Mary (1987), Charles Williams: An Exploration of His Life and Work, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-503311-6
 
* Carpenter, Humphrey (2006), The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-0077-4869-8




== External Links ==
== External Links ==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_into_Hell This novel at Wikipedia]
*[http://www.amazon.com/ This work in Kindle Format at Amazon.com]
*[http://www.amazon.com/Descent-into-Novel-Charles-Williams/dp/0802812201/ Amazon Book Listing]
*[http://www.amazon.com/ This work in Paperback Format at Amazon.com]
*[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300341.txt Project Gutenberg of Australia e-book version]
*[http://www.amazon.com/ This work in Hardcover Format at Amazon.com]

Latest revision as of 11:22, 6 September 2015

Descent Into Hell
Descent Into Hell Book Cover, written by Charles Williams
Descent Into Hell Book Cover,
written by Charles Williams
Author(s) Charles Williams
Publisher Faber and Faber
Publication date 1937
Media type eBook
Paperback
Hardcover
Length 222 Pages
ISBN 978-0802812209 (Paperback)
978-1849028899 (Hardcover)
ASIN B00RMZDANU (eBook)

For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).


Descent Into Hell is a novel written by Charles Williams. In this work succubi characters including Lilith appear.


Overview

  • Title: Descent Into Hell
  • Author: Charles Williams
  • Published By: Faber and Faber
  • Length: 222 Pages
  • Format: eBook, Paperback and Hardcover
  • ASIN: B00RMZDANU (eBook)
  • ISBN-10: 0802812201 (Paperback)
  • ISBN-13: 978-0802812209 (Paperback)
  • ISBN-10: 9781849028899 (Hardcover)
  • ISBN-13: 978-1849028899 (Hardcover)
  • Publishing Date: 1937


Plot Summary

Charles Williams was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian, and literary critic. Williams was a member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group at Oxford University in England, whose members included J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield.

Generally thought to be Williams's best novel, Descent Into Hell deals with the various forms of selfishness, and how sin brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. From beginning to end, Williams crafts a story that reads more like a theological drama which, though obscure, is deeply personal and engaged with humanity's need for communion with God and one another. Williams believed that the source of sin and alienation from God and one another is our failure to live according to "co-inherence." At the conclusion of the novel, you will understand why C.S. Lewis was drawn to Christ through this man's work.


Book Review

At the time of this article's entry in the SuccuWiki, no review was available. Tera has this work on her reading list and will review it shortly.


External Links

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