Who edited Tolkien’s unfinished mythology into the 1977 book The Silmarillion?

Christopher Tolkien edited Tolkien’s unfinished mythology into the 1977 book The Silmarillion.

Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien’s third child, prepared The Silmarillion for publication after his father’s death. The book was published in 1977, four years after J.R.R. Tolkien died. It brings together creation stories, legends of the First Age, and later material concerning the history of Middle-earth.

The work was not a completed novel that Christopher simply copied from one final manuscript. J.R.R. Tolkien had revised and rewritten many parts of the mythology across decades, leaving versions that sometimes differed in detail, style, and chronology. Christopher selected, arranged, and edited the material to create a publishable form, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay.

Christopher later edited many additional texts in The History of Middle-earth. His role is therefore different from that of C.S. Lewis, who was Tolkien’s friend and an early reader, and Rayner Unwin, who worked in publishing.