“ON FAIRY-STORIES:” TOLKIEN’S THEORY OF FANTASY Tolkien’s famous essay “On Fairy-stories” is regarded as one of the most influential contributions to the study of fantasy literature, where Tolkien offers a critical analysis of a form which has “captured him” (Helms 11). The essay, as Timmerman points out, “constitutes one of the few genuine aesthetic treatises on making a fantasy world” (51). It is considered to be a manifesto where Tolkien declares what fantasy is and how it should operate (Flieger and Anderson 9). It is also in this essay that Tolkien shapes his ideas about recovery, sub-creation, and eucatastrophe, which, as Hart and Khovacs put it, furnished the theoretical support for his later work (viii). Tolkien’s theories were evolving while he was writing The Lord of the Rings, if not already “fully evolved” as Ryan argues (107). As he wrote in a letter, the essay “was entirely beneficial to The Lord of the Rings, which was a practical demonstration of the views that I expressed” (Letters 310). The essay includes essential guidelines to understanding how Tolkien applies his theories of fantasy in his fictional works; therefore, it is important that this scholarly text be examined before any further discussion on Tolkien’s fiction. 1.1. THE BACKGROUND The essay has its roots in an Andrew Lang 1 lecture Tolkien was invited to deliver at the Scottish University of St. Andrews in 1939. These lectures were, as the Secretary to the University wrote in his letter to Tolkien in 1938, required to focus on Andrew Lang and his work, or “one or other of the many subjects on which he wrote” (qtd. in R. Hart 2). The topic of Tolkien’s lecture was fairy stories, which was what earned him and Lang fame and success. Tolkien had published his fairy-story The Hobbit to remarkable success, had written what would later be published as The Silmarillion, and was working on The Lord of the Rings 2 – his own “experiment in the arts of […] inducing ‘Secondary Belief’” (Letters 412). Very soon after the publication of 1 Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a well-known collector and writer of fairy tales, and a scholar famous for his translations of Homer. 2 In his introductory note to Tree and Leaf, Tolkien says the lecture was written “in the same period when The Lord of the Rings was beginning to unfold itself” (5).