Who completed the edited text of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion for publication?

Christopher Tolkien completed the edited text of The Silmarillion for publication.

J.R.R. Tolkien worked on the mythology underlying The Silmarillion for decades, but he died in 1973 without preparing a final publishable version. His son Christopher Tolkien examined drafts, variants, notes, and related papers, then edited them into a coherent posthumous book with assistance from fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay.

The Silmarillion was published in 1977. It presents the creation of Eä, the history of the Elves and Valar, the wars against Morgoth, and later events leading toward the world of The Lord of the Rings. Because the material existed in many versions, Christopher had to make editorial decisions about arrangement and consistency.

The book is therefore not a completed manuscript released unchanged after Tolkien’s death. It is an editorial reconstruction based on his writings. Christopher later published more of the underlying drafts in The History of Middle-earth, allowing readers to compare the development of Tolkien’s mythology.