"On Fairy-Stories" is a critical essay by J.R.R. Tolkien, the acclaimed author of The Lord of the Rings. The essay was published in its final form in the collection Essays Presented to Charles Williams from Oxford University Press in 1947, but the essay was originally written and presented as a speech in 1939, when Tolkien gave the annual Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
The essay is an examination of the "fairy-story" as a literary form. Tolkien joins predecessors George MacDonald, Andrew Lang, and Max Müller by asserting that these fairy-stories should be read by adults as well as children, being formative works of the imagination that have universal application. In the course of the essay, Tolkien explicates his thoroughly developed view of fantasy, as well as that of speculative fiction, both of which are genres in which Tolkien's name has become quite well-known. His theory of Creation and Sub-Creation, present in most of his works, is most fully fleshed out in this essay, as well as his beliefs about the purpose of fiction and the practical qualifiers of a "fairy-story." Despite its density and the specificity of its target audience, "On Fairy-Stories" is one of the most profound pieces of critical writing on the subject of fairy-stories, and indeed on fantasy as a whole.
