Safe Sailing on the Stright Road, Christopher Tolkien
Today, Middle-earth loses its stoutest esquire
I’ve just learned that Christopher Tolkien, son of JRR Tolkien and curator of much of his work, has died at age 95.
This news had moved me more than I expected.
I spent the last two years reading Tolkien’s writing that we fans would have never seen if not for Christopher’s devoted work. The first drafts of The Silmarillion and of The Lord of the Rings, which allow us to see deeper into Tolkien’s creation. All the writings concerning the Great Stories of Middle-earth, of which we’d know nothing if Christopher hadn’t curated and published them.
And of course the first and maybe more important of the books that Christopher curated and finally published after his father spent his life looking for a publisher who would believe in such a strange, complex, intimidating story: The Silmarillion.
Of Tolkien’s four children, Christopher was always the most involved in his stories. With his two brothers, he listened to The Hobbit as Tolkien made it up night after night in his studio, just for them.
He was the first reader of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien sent him chapters and discussed his progress in letters to Christopher, who served in South Africa during WWII.
He was even the…
