Who edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published collection The Silmarillion?

Christopher Tolkien edited J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published collection The Silmarillion.

J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973 without preparing a final publishable version of the entire mythology. His son Christopher examined a large body of manuscripts, drafts, notes, and variant texts, then organized them into a coherent volume. The Silmarillion was published in 1977 by George Allen & Unwin.

The book presents the creation of Eä, the history of the Valar and Elves, the First Age, and later accounts leading toward Númenor and the Rings of Power. Because Tolkien revised these materials repeatedly, Christopher had to make editorial decisions about arrangement and wording. He explained aspects of that work in later commentary.

The Silmarillion is therefore not a novel completed and polished by Tolkien in the same way as The Hobbit. It is an edited posthumous publication based on Tolkien’s writings. Christopher Tolkien later edited many additional volumes of his father’s unfinished and scholarly material.