Given the multimedia behemoth his estate has become, it’s difficult to remember that J R R Tolkien published relatively little in his lifetime. Apart from his two famous novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, there were only a handful of essays, short stories and poems, often published in obscure academic journals and some long out of print by the time he became famous. Even his great life’s work, The Silmarillion, wasn’t published until four years after the professor’s death.
It’s also somewhat ironic that one of those few published (in his lifetime) works from the writer who famously “cordially dislike[d] allegory in all its manifestations” should be one of the most profound allegories ever written. Leaf by Niggle, written in 1938–39, combines autobiographical despair, Christian faith and hope, gentle social commentary, tragedy and comedy, in less than 7500 words.
