What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture on fantasy and fairy stories?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture on fantasy and fairy stories was titled “On Fairy-Stories.”

Tolkien delivered “On Fairy-Stories” as the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews in Scotland in 1939, although the essay is commonly associated with the work developed from his 1936 lecture context and published versions. The essay examines what fairy stories are, who they are for, and what they can achieve.

Its best-known ideas include recovery, escape, and consolation. Tolkien argued that fairy stories are not merely children’s entertainment and that fantasy can provide a renewed view of ordinary things. He also defended the imaginative construction of coherent secondary worlds.

The essay was published in revised form in 1947 and later appeared in the collection Tree and Leaf. It is often confused with “The Monsters and the Critics,” Tolkien’s influential 1936 lecture on Beowulf, which is a different work.