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

Christopher Tolkien completed the editing of The Silmarillion for publication.

The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977, four years after J.R.R. Tolkien died. Christopher Tolkien worked through a large and complex body of drafts, notes, unfinished passages, and variant versions to prepare the book with assistance from the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay.

The resulting volume presents the mythology and history of Tolkien’s invented world, beginning with creation stories and continuing through the First Age and later events. It includes material about the Valar, the Elves, the great wars of Beleriand, and the tragic stories of figures such as Túrin Turambar.

Christopher did not invent the underlying mythology; his role was editorial. Because Tolkien revised these tales repeatedly and left some incomplete, The Silmarillion is an editorial reconstruction rather than a novel prepared for publication by its author.