Beautiful illustrations to match the delicious stories. Roverandam is sweet, one can imagine Tolkien telling this to his children. Farmer Giles of Ham is the anti-knight in shining armor story; just a farmer who gets things done. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry; some cute and silly, some haunting and one just horrifying. Smith of Wooton Major is a lovely tale of Faery which isn't cute or sappy. Leaf by Niggle is by far my favorite. A morality tale to remind us all how to be, and why. Don't skip Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories" at the end. It is dense, but will explain exactly why he wrote what he wrote. ( )

This collection contains some of my favorite poems and stories of Tolkien's, and his creativity with language really shines. ( )

A wonderful collection of short stories, poems, and even an essay... I highly recommend to any Tolkien fan! ( )

I'd read several pieces here before, but not all, and decades ago. The essay "On Fairy-stories" is the best, though here relegated to Appendix. It is the only essay, and several of the remaining short fiction works are worth revisiting.

"On Fairy-stories" discusses the role of fantasy for culture, and how it is misunderstood by many (especially critics?) who take it as juvenile or non-literary or both. Tolkien's position of "sub-creation" strikes me as another expression of Cabell's Romance, and to similar purpose and value. Tolkien rejects much scholarship on fairy-stories, not as invalid but as useless for either enjoying or writing a story about Faerie. Such scholarship is better for answering questions outside the tale, as it is irrelevant whether an event "really happened", or whether a scene reflected historical personages or legal doctrines. Rather, the stories arise from story-making (using metaphor "Cauldron of Story") and the aspects of a fantasy story which matter are those which work as story. Tolkien finishes with some reflections on what story is good for, all of these sensible and persuasive and wholly Cabellian. (His epilogue on the eucatastrophe of the Christian story he admits is "dangerous" and also revealing of what aspects of his fiction share in his own Christian beliefs.)

Tokien's dislike of allegory is infamous, and he had his reasons but does not mention them in this essay. Interestingly, the one mention of allegory is approving if incidental, in thinking of Greek myths when illustrating natural phenomena as better understood as allegory, not as myth.

I'm left motivated to read his other essays, perhaps especially those on Beowulf and his thoughts on invented language.

Of the short fiction, most memorable from my first reading was "Leaf by Niggle", and it did not disappoint upon re-reading. I enjoyed both "Farmer Giles" and "Smith of Wootton Major", somewhat moreso than expected even as (perhaps directly following from the fact) I'd not remembered any detail of either's plot nor of character. "Smith" is more poignant and Dunsanian than "Giles", and for me the lost gem.

I also appreciated the Bombadil poems, but in this case very specifically as vague backstory. Some of these seemed shoehorned into the Bombadil character, or their alleged source The Red Book: for example, "The Errantry", quite near to becoming that type of Elizabethan fairy story Tolkien admits to loathing, or several poems which seem something Bombadil might share when entertaining hobbits, not verse telling us of the character or his world. (Shippey confirms several of these suspicions, and Tolkien almost apologises for them in a framing preamble.)

"Roverandom" I need not revisit, it comes across very much as a children's story and not the variety I'm still fond of reading. I don't think I would have much liked it as a child, either.

//

Alan Lee's illustrations (and his afterward) are welcome, but unnecessary. It comes down to whether you admire Lee's interpretation of Tolkien's world, or do not: I do.

Tom Shippey's Introduction valuable and full of spoilers, regrettable the editor did not swap his & Lee's contributions, allowing the reader to proceed from first page to last, as a book naturally suggests. ( )

Great collection of Tolkien short stories. I had previously read Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and Smith of Wootton Major, but Roverandom and Leaf by Niggle were new; as well as the essay/lecture Tolkien wrote/gave titled 'On Faery-Stories'. Both Roverandom and Leaf by Niggle were good stories (though Roverandom was better), and the essay was a good scholarly write-up on fantasy/fairy-tales/etc. as of Tolkien's time. Definitely worth a read. ( )