Which Tolkien child edited and published many of his father’s posthumous works?

Christopher Tolkien edited and published many of J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumous works.

Born in 1924, Christopher was Tolkien’s third child and became deeply familiar with his father’s manuscripts, maps, notes, and invented languages. After Tolkien died in 1973, Christopher organized extensive unfinished and unpublished material for publication. His work produced The Silmarillion in 1977, followed by collections and editions such as Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth.

Christopher’s role was not simply that of a copy editor. Tolkien left multiple versions of stories, contradictory details, incomplete passages, and rapidly changing ideas. Christopher selected, arranged, and sometimes connected these materials so readers could follow the development of the mythology. This means some posthumous books differ from novels Tolkien prepared for publication himself. Christopher Tolkien died in 2020, after decades of preserving and presenting his father’s literary papers.