Which university hosted J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture?

The University of St Andrews hosted J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture.

Tolkien delivered the lecture On Fairy-Stories at St Andrews in Scotland. The Andrew Lang Lectures honor the writer and folklorist Andrew Lang, who studied at the university. Tolkien’s lecture examined the nature and purposes of fairy stories and later became a major essay on fantasy.

Tolkien is strongly associated with Oxford, where he studied and held academic posts, so readers sometimes assume that all of his important lectures were delivered there. Oxford was central to his professional life, but the Andrew Lang Lecture was a St Andrews event. This makes the venue a useful distinction in Tolkien’s academic biography.

The lecture’s ideas are frequently connected with Tolkien’s own creative method. His account of secondary-world fantasy, and his defense of fairy stories as serious literature, helped shape later discussions of fantasy fiction and world-building.