‘On Fairy Stories’ is a lecture by Tolkien transcribed into essay-prose that seeks to define and defend the fairytale and fantasy as a genre. It provides an insight into Tolkien’s view of the genre and hence how it is used within his own writing, and the importance he places behind its uplifting, arguing it to exist in a literary plain beyond children’s fiction and hold a great importance. Even in an essay format Tolkien is poetic with his words and it was on the more enjoyable end of critical reads.