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

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture on fantasy was titled “On Fairy-Stories.”

Tolkien delivered “On Fairy-Stories” as the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews in 1939. The essay explored what fairy-stories are, why people create and read them, and how they can provide recovery, escape, and consolation.

The work is often discussed alongside Tolkien’s concept of “eucatastrophe,” his term for the sudden joyful turn at the end of a story. Tolkien argued that fantasy was not merely childish entertainment but a serious form with distinctive imaginative value.

The essay was later published in Tree and Leaf, together with “Leaf by Niggle.” It is separate from his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” a title that is frequently mistaken for the answer.