What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture about the nature and value of fairy stories?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture about the nature and value of fairy stories was titled On Fairy-Stories.

Tolkien delivered the lecture as the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews in Scotland on 8 March 1939. It was later revised and published in 1947. The essay sets out Tolkien’s influential ideas about fantasy, mythology, and the purposes of fairy tales.

In the essay, Tolkien argues that fairy stories are not merely children’s entertainment. He describes several benefits of fantasy, including recovery from habitual ways of seeing, escape from constraints, and consolation. He also identifies “eucatastrophe,” his term for a sudden, joyful turn in a story.

On Fairy-Stories is often read alongside Tolkien’s fiction because it explains principles visible in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It is distinct from “The Monsters and the Critics,” Tolkien’s famous 1936 lecture on Beowulf, which concerns Old English literature rather than fairy stories.