In his essay On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien discusses the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy and rescues the genre from those who would relegate it to juvenilia. This is aptly and elegantly illustrated in the haunting short story, Leaf by Niggle, which recounts the story of the artist, Niggle, who has 'a long journey to make' and is seen as an allegory of Tolkien's life. Written in the same period when The Lord of the Rings was beginning to take shape, these two works show Tolkien's mastery and understanding of the art of subcreation, the power to give fantasy 'the inner conscience of reality'. This edition also contains an introduction by Christopher Tolkien together with the poem Mythopoeia which relates an argument between two unforgettable characters as they discuss the making of myths.