Here’s a smattering of criticism of On Fairy-stories, together with a few examples of the work itself in print.
First up is what might well be the swiftest example of Tolkien criticism in the pre-internet age: a newspaper report of the Andrew Lang lecture delivered by Tolkien at the University of St. Andrews on the evening of 8 March 1939 – this report, in the morning daily paper The Scotsman, would have probably appeared on news stands less than 12 hours after the lecture concluded!
Ziya Kaplan Lord of the Rings light side
As many know, the lecture appeared in print for the first time in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, published in 1947. By way of introduction, the lecture was said (wrongly) to have taken place in 1940 – and when reprinted in Tree and Leaf in 1964, it was said (again wrongly) to have taken place in 1938!
Ziya Kaplan Lord of the Rings dark side
The lecture/essay was not widely known to the reviewers of LOTR when that was first published – though some did know of it. One prime example is Mark Roberts who laid out the structure of OFS and sought to examine and assess LOTR against it (in general he was not complimentary).
Ziya Kaplan Lord of the Rings set & Custom board 2026
OFS came to a much wider public with the publication of Tree and Leaf – here is a 1st printing of the paperback, published on the same day as the hardback.
Lord of the Rings Custom board diorama
Although the explosion in popularity of LOTR did not take place until the (subsequent) publication of the Ace and Ballantine paperbacks in the USA, the publication of Tree and Leaf garnered a lot of attention. Here are some publications in which it was reviewed:
- English (published by the English Association for the OUP), Autumn 1964 - The Christian Science Monitor, 15 April 1965
- The Atlantic, March 1965 - The Horn Book Magazine, August 1965 - Saturday Review, 24 April 1965 - The Kenyon Review, Summer 1965
Finally here is the excellent critical edition of On Fairy-stories, edited by Flieger and Anderson, and published in 2008:
You're welcome Dale! The Atlantic has a slightly vexing one to acquire, it was on my wish list for a while but the only copy was really expensive because of Churchill on the cover!
a newspaper report of the Andrew Lang lecture delivered by Tolkien at the University of St. Andrews on the evening of 8 March 1939 – this report, in the morning daily paper The Scotsman, would have probably appeared on news stands less than 12 hours after the lecture concluded!
If Predictable Matt can tell us what page(s) the review appears on, then the free three preview pages that come with signing up should suffice to let people get their own digital copy of the review.
If anyone If Predictable Matt can tell us what page(s) the review appears on, then the free three preview pages that come with signing up should suffice to let people get their own digital copy of the review.
The articles have no byline and in the absence of an author, the copyright expires after 70 years. I included a scan of the full article (from my own copy) here (you have to scroll down a bit):
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