What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture on fantasy literature?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture on fantasy literature was titled On Fairy-Stories. He delivered it as the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews in Scotland on 8 March 1939.

The essay examines what fairy-stories are, where they come from, and what they can achieve. Tolkien argues that such stories are not merely childish entertainment and discusses ideas including recovery, escape, and consolation.

On Fairy-Stories is especially important because Tolkien connects his theory of fantasy with his own practice as a writer and philologist. His discussion of the “sub-creation” of imaginary worlds became influential in later fantasy criticism.

The essay was published in expanded form in 1947 and later collected in various editions. It is sometimes confused with The Monsters and the Critics, another famous Tolkien lecture, but that work concerns Beowulf rather than fairy-stories generally.