Which Tolkien book is a collection of essays including “On Fairy-Stories”?

The Monsters and the Critics is the Tolkien book that includes “On Fairy-Stories.”

The volume, published in 1983 after Tolkien’s death, collects several of his academic essays and lectures. Its title comes from his influential 1936 lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. The book also includes “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien’s important discussion of the nature and value of fairy stories.

In “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien describes several functions of fairy stories, including recovery, escape, and consolation. He also discusses the idea of sub-creation: the making of a coherent secondary world through imaginative art. These ideas help explain both his literary theory and the methods behind his own fiction.

The title can be confused with Tree and Leaf, which also contains “On Fairy-Stories” in a well-known edition. However, The Monsters and the Critics is the collection of Tolkien’s essays that gathers that work alongside major pieces of his scholarship. The distinction depends on the edition and publication history readers are using.