In which journal was Tolkien’s essay Leaf by Niggle first published in 1945?

Tolkien’s essay-like story Leaf by Niggle was first published in The Dublin Review in 1945.

Leaf by Niggle follows an artist who spends much of his life trying to complete a vast painting of a tree. He becomes distracted by practical obligations and by the needs of his neighbor, Parish. The story combines fantasy with reflections on creativity, duty, mortality, and the relationship between a small work and a larger imagined whole.

The piece appeared in The Dublin Review in January 1945. It was later collected in various Tolkien volumes, including Tree and Leaf, where it was read alongside the essay On Fairy-Stories.

The story is often discussed as partly autobiographical because Niggle’s unfinished tree can resemble Tolkien’s lifelong work on languages and mythology. However, Tolkien did not present it as a simple one-to-one autobiography. Its religious and moral dimensions are also central to its interpretation.