# How do Tolkien scholars view Christopher Tolkien?



## Macro123 (Dec 30, 2018)

is Christopher viewed as a an important Tolkien scholar among other scholars?


----------



## Ithilethiel (Feb 19, 2019)

I've been curious about this also. I'm gonna give it a bump by posting. I wish someone more knowledgeable on this subject would venture a reply...


----------



## Erestor Arcamen (Feb 20, 2019)

I'm definitely not an expert but I'd assume that Tolkien scholars would hold him pretty high seeing as he put together the Silmarillion and HOME series that we all know and love.


----------



## Miguel (Feb 20, 2019)

Ereinion Christopher Tolkien JR Tolkien.


----------



## Ithilethiel (Feb 20, 2019)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> I'm definitely not an expert but I'd assume that Tolkien scholars would hold him pretty high seeing as he put together the Silmarillion and HOME series that we all know and love.



Thank you EA. I know I'm very thankful for CT and his efforts. Think of the hours and hours we have all enjoyed based on his published works of his father's writings. What a dull world it would be without the Sil and the HoME literature. 

I'm sure, just as in all literary circles there are purists out there who would disagree but I think Tolkien though pragmatic was always more committed to his many fans than to literary critics.


----------



## Olorgando (Aug 21, 2019)

Christopher Tolkien “studied English at Trinity College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1949 and his B.Litt a few years later” (as per Wiki). He then did work as author or translator or editor during the 1950s and 1960s, and “was a lecturer and tutor in English Language at New College, Oxford, from 1964 to 1975” (again as per Wiki). So, he had a background much like his father’s in studies and professional life until 1975, when Christopher turned 51, and thereafter devoted his life to his father’s writings. Except for specialists who may have dug deeper on (somewhat) more narrowly focused topics, Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, Tom Shippey (very strong on philology) and Douglas A. Anderson (The Annotated Hobbit et.al.) – I’m definitely missing some people – nobody knows JRRT’s writings better. All the people that I mentioned above have invariably stated their thanks for Christopher’s help. And on things like LoTR, he was the insider’s insider, being original audience, and original mapmaker. And for much of JRRT’s writing, he may have been the only one to be able to decipher difficult parts.

Another point: with there having been not a little critical scorn of LoTR from the “modernist” set quite influential about syllabuses of all kind, it took decades for any university-based JRRT scholarship to get past the snobby sniffing at the thought of such a thing. There aren’t that many Tolkien scholars compared to what effort has been lavished on scholarship on de facto far less influential writers (except to a tiny snobby “elite”).


----------

