Contains an essay which discusses the fairy tale as a form of literature which offers a combination of values peculiar to itself as well as a short story, "Leaf by Niggle," which is an apt illustration of ideas suggested in the epilogue to the essay. As all readers of J.R.R. Tolkien know, fairy stories are not just for children. His masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, is a fairy story, but is also an epic which has been acclaimed as a work of genius and compared to Spenser's Faerie Queene. In the essay which forms the first part of this book, Mr. Tolkien rescues the fairy story from the academic theorists on the one hand and the sentimentalists on the other. He discusses it as a form of literature which offers, along with values common to other forms, a combination of values peculiar to itself: "Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation, all things of which children have, as a rule, less need than older people." He goes on to show how the fairy story differs from other forms of fantasy, such as the dream story of Alice in Wonderland and the beast fable of Peter Rabbit, and distinguishes magic--"not an art but a technique" from enchantment--"the more potent and specially elvish craft." The essay is indispensable to all who are interested in the literature of fantasy and myth. The short story, "Leaf by Niggle," which follows it is an apt and moving illustration of ideas suggested in the Epilogue to the essay. It is the tale of a little painter, too kindhearted and impractical for worldly success in his art, who is in the end allowed to see how his failure may be rectified and his work completed and realized.--Dust jacket.… (more)