J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay about fantasy and fairy stories is titled On Fairy-Stories.
The essay was first published in 1947 in Essays Presented to Charles Williams. Tolkien developed its ideas from the Andrew Lang lecture he delivered at the University of St Andrews in 1938. He argued that fairy stories deserve serious study and discussed fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation.
On Fairy-Stories became one of Tolkien’s most influential statements about the purpose and value of fantasy literature. It is also closely connected with his understanding of imaginative creation, which he called sub-creation.
The essay is sometimes confused with “The Monsters and the Critics,” Tolkien’s major 1936 lecture and essay on Beowulf. Both are important works of Tolkien’s scholarship, but they address different subjects.