Tolkien’s acclaimed modern classic ‘fairie’ tale, browse by Derek Jacobi.

Leaf by Niggle recounts the strange travels from the painter Niggle, who all sets out to paint the perfect tree. But he senses that he will be snatched away from his function long before it really is finished – if certainly it might ever be completed nowadays. For it is within another and brighter place that Niggle finds his tree is completed, and learns that it is indeed a genuine tree, a true element of creation.

Written in the first 1940s at exactly the same time as GOD, THE FATHER of the Bands was taking form, ‘Leaf by Niggle’ can be a passionate adult fairy tale about a guy that has ‘a long journey to make’, regarded as an allegory of Tolkien’s personal life.