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How long does it take to read Tree and Leaf?

J. R. R. Tolkien

Tree and Leaf by J. R. R. Tolkien takes about 2 hours 3 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 2 hours 3 minutes

An evening's read

First published 1964. 112 pages, about 30,800 words.

5 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 3 hours 25 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 2 hours 3 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 1 hour 17 minutes

The page count is the median across 24 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Fairy-stories are not just for children, as anyone who has read Tolkien will know. 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. The poem Mythopoeia relates an argument between two unforgettable characters as they discuss the making of myths. 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 sub-creation, the power to give fantasy the inner consistency of reality. Tree and Leaf is an eclectic, amusing, provocative and entertaining collection of works which reveals the diversity of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination, the depth of his knowledge of English history, and the breadth of his talent as a creator of fantastic fiction.

Subjects: History and criticism, Fairy tales, Tales, Fairy tales, history and criticism

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