What were the effects of texts dealing with the diabolical, and who profited by them? This study, ranging from »Doctor Faustus« via colonial novels and 'satanic' rock music to »The Satanic Verses«, argues that the complexities of rationalization and demonization cannot be contained in the simplistic - and contradictory - topoi of the decline and return of the devil since the Renaissance. Yet amidst these shifts and countershifts there is one phenomenon that seems to defy historical change: the diabolization of authors who dared to write of the devil.