Who edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published book Unfinished Tales?

Christopher Tolkien edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published book Unfinished Tales.

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth appeared in 1980, four years after The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien selected, arranged, and edited stories and fragments left among his father’s papers. The collection includes material from several periods of Tolkien’s imagined history, ranging from the First Age to the later years of the Third Age.

The book is not a single continuous narrative. Some sections are nearly complete stories, while others are drafts, alternate versions, or narrative summaries. Christopher included editorial commentary to explain relationships between the texts and to identify important differences from published works.

Christopher Tolkien continued publishing his father’s writings for decades, including The History of Middle-earth, a twelve-volume study of Tolkien’s drafts and revisions. Readers sometimes confuse Unfinished Tales with The Silmarillion, but the two books have different editorial purposes: The Silmarillion presents a more unified posthumous account, while Unfinished Tales preserves a wider range of incomplete materials.