Sermons by the Devil

About this book

What would the Devil say if invited to address respectable society from a pulpit? William Shuler Harris gives a notorious speaker the occasion to examine human behaviour from an uncomfortable angle.

The conceit allows satire and moral argument to meet in sermons that turn an accusation back upon the people who expect to hear it. Its religious imagination is distinctly of its period, yet the choice of preacher still unsettles the familiar arrangement between virtue and temptation. Much of the pleasure comes from wondering whom a diabolical speaker will condemn next.