Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien

Christopher Reuel Tolkien was born on November 21, 1924 in Leeds, England. He is author J.R.R. Tolkien's youngest son and is known for having edited and published much of his father's work posthumously, including The Children of Húrin. Christopher Tolkien, who grew up in Oxford, U.K., listening to tales of the Bagginses and their adventures, set to work as his father's editor far earlier than that. He was an editor from the age of 5, catching inconsistencies in his father's bedtime tales, and was promised tuppence by his father for every mistake he noticed in "The Hobbit". As a young man he was typing up manuscripts and drawing maps of Middle-earth and around the time he was commissioned an officer in the [Royal Air Force] in 1945, his father was already calling him his chief critic and collaborator. He was also responsible for composing the original map of Middle-earth included with the The Lord of the Rings series when it was first published in the mid-1950s. Christopher also brought us The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, The History of Middle-earth series and many others.

Christopher Tolkien passed away on January 16, 2020 at the age of 95.

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