Stories where the Devil tells his side of the story as to how it all began and/or what is really going down between him and God.
One of my favorites is Harlan Ellison’s “The Deathbird”, which portrays God as a mad creature who won the right to rule over Earth, and Nira(the only survivor of “what was” before the mad god wiped out everything to start over in his image).
Any others?
It’s not told by the Devil directly, but it is compiled from his statements, in Satan, His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S. by Jeremy Leven (who wrote the book and screenplay for Creator, and wrote and directed Don Juan de Marco)
You might also want to have a look at the “Don Juan in Hell” sequence from George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman, although that just has the Devil in debate.
I’d recently read Up Jumps the Devil. It was… okay.
Heinlein’s Job: A Comedy of Justice ought to satisfy the requirements.
Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series has Satan screwing with Death/War/Fate/Time/Nature for five books then the sixth, For Love of Evil, is the whole thing essentially retold from Satan’s perspective as part of his eternal contest with God.
I’m not sure if you are defining “stories” as strictly literature or if you’re including other media - but my first thought was the long running TV show Supernatural. Lucifer is one of the main recurring antagonists during several seasons.
Lucifer’s “side of the story” about his fall from grace" is:
They cover his relationship with God, Lilith and the other angels. As I recall from the dvd commentary, the writers lots of research into various tellings of his story and the angel’s lore.
The Lucifer TV show is fun, but they really infantalized the character compared to how he was portrayed in the comics the show is based on, where he’s much closer to the way he’s portrayed in Milton - powerful, prideful, principled, and inhuman. Plus, he does shit like pilot a ship made from the fingernails of dead men into the afterlife.
I’ve always been fond of Jack Chalker’s And the Devil Will Drag You Under.
The fantastically brilliant “I Am Returning” by Ray Russell, where Satan is an alien, exiled under the Earth (after a long fall), and who manipulates the human race in a fight with his brother (who cast him out), who is manipulating on his own. It covers a hell of a lot of philosophical ground – in only 1500 words.
I haven’t read it—does Milton’s Paradise Lost count?
DC Comics’ “Vertigo” line did a number of different interpretations, mostly in Hellblazer, The Sandman, and their spinoffs.
There was Lucifer Morningstar, as Miller mentioned, who eventually got his own comic and TV show. There was also The First Of The Fallen, who was a drastically different variation on the theme.
And then there was Preacher, in which Satan has a very minor role, but which twists Judeo-Christian mythology all to heck.
I loved Stephen Brust’s To Reign in Hell when I read it a couple of decades ago. It’s basically a back story to Creation and the Fall.
I see “Paradise Lost” has been mentioned more than once, but I’m surprised it was not the first work mentioned, as it is so archetypical and influential for this genre. Perhaps so much so that it goes without saying.
That’s the one I was going to mention. it doesn’t so much give Satan’s side of the story, as present a complicated story which could plausibly have been corrupted and simplified into the biblical story that we know. For example, in the book, Satan and Lucifer are separate characters, as are Mephistopheles and Beelzebub. But it’s certainly true that neither Satan nor Lucifer are the bad guys in the story.
If you consider the serpent in the garden of Eden satan like many do, then the Holy Bible itself does. In the tale of Adam and Eve, he’s the only character telling the truth.
Anne Rice’s fifth novel in her Vampire Chronicles was Memnoch the Devil in which Satan is presented as a relatively sympathetic character.
Laura Ann Gilman has a series of books called “The Devil’s West”. The Devil holds a territory in 19th century North America. It’s definitely non-traditional and I highly recommend the series.
Bedazzled, the 1967 comedy, starring and written by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. (Avoid the puerile 2000 remake, which completely eliminated all of the theological satire at the heart of the story.)
Satan’s powerful speech to Beelzebub in Paradise Lost is worth quoting in full, and worth reading, heavy poetry though it is:
If thou beest he―but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!―if he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder; and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost―the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire―that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal substance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.
So spake th’ apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair.