Chateau Lloyd

It's hard for me to mourn someone who makes it to the ripe old age of 95, but I can certainly express gratitude for the great things he shared with us all.

Without Christopher Tolkien there would be no Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales (one of my favorite anthologies) would be lying in obscurity.

It is possible that other scholars would have unearthed these lost works of J.R.R. Tolkien, but none could have brought to the depth of understanding that Christopher did.

Though this may be heresy, I think Unfinished Tales is in some ways one of the most consequential of the posthumously published works because it is so accessible and well-edited.  The short stories and topic covered give a glimpse not only of the wider parts of Middle Earth, but also Tolkien's creative process.  This would later be explored in great depth through the History of Middle Earth, but that massive work can be overwhelming.

I think that was why Christopher's last effort was geared towards producing smaller books drawn from the earlier work.  The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin all contained previously-published material, but those earlier works were laden with footnotes and discussion.  The smaller volumes give us a more concentrated glimpse of what the great master was trying to achieve.

As Tolkien himself wrote in "The Quest of Erebor" referring to Dain Ironfoot:  "I should call it a heavy loss if it was not a wonder that in his great age he could still wield his axe as mightily as they say he did, standing over the body of King Brand before the Gate of Erebor until the darkness fell."

So it is also with Christopher, still publishing and delighting people well into his nineties.  Without him, that short, brilliantly evocative sentence would have been lost to us.  Rest in Peace.