J. R. R. TOLKIEN ...

Tolkien may be more well known for his larger works like The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion but he also published a number of short stories that if not quite so epic or grand are just as well crafted and worthy of attention.

They are: 

Leaf by Niggle (a semi-autobiographical story on creativity and spiritualist fairytale)

Smith of Wootton Major (a fairytale about the passing on of knowledge and journeys into faerie)

Farmer Giles of Ham (a charming story that has similarities to The Hobbit and satirizes academia) 

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (a collection of poems that follow the further exploits of the character)

The last three are illustrated by Pauline Baynes who also did the illustrations for C. S. Lewis's

Narnia Series. Here are a few examples:

                                                                © The Chapin Library of Rare Books.

The stories are all short but rich in imagery and incident. The poems – all of which do not involve Tom Bombadil – are really good and Tolkien's expertise as a poet is often overlooked. I will not go into detail about each story as they are widely available and already well studied and described, but will say that they each stand on their own really well and you do not need to have read any of his other works to enjoy them. They paint a much richer picture of Tolkien and stand well alongside his other works.

If you like any of these stories you may be interested to know that Tolkien wrote many other pieces of literature and poetry for which I would recommend going to Wikipedia or tolkienateway.net for a more comprehensive list. 

Here is a link to the complete box-set of stories, not including Leaf by Niggle but instead including Roverandom, a short story Tolkien wrote for his son Michael about his toy dog's adventures after he lost him.

And here is a link to Pauline Bayne's website where you can see some of her other artwork.