Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays is a posthumous collection of seven scholarly essays by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by his son Christopher and first published in 1983 by George Allen and Unwin. The essays were originally delivered as lectures to academic audiences, with one exception.
Christopher Tolkien edited the collection after his father's death and wrote the foreword. He noted that "On Translating Beowulf" differs from the other essays because it was not addressed to an academic audience.
"On Fairy-Stories" is Tolkien's defence of the fantasy genre. It was originally delivered as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture at St Andrews University.
"A Secret Vice" discusses the creation of imaginary languages and provides background on Tolkien's own invented languages, Quenya and Sindarin. It reveals that language-making was central to Tolkien's creative life.
George Allen and Unwin published the original 1983 edition. Houghton Mifflin released an edition in 1984, and HarperCollins published another in 1997.
"English and Welsh" was the inaugural O'Donnell Memorial Lecture, delivered in 1955. It surveys the historical relationship between the English and Welsh languages, including an analysis of the word Welsh.