Christopher Tolkien
| Christopher Tolkien | |
|---|---|
| Born | Christopher John Reuel Tolkien 21 November 1924 Leeds, England |
| Occupation | Editor, novelist, academic |
| Education |
Dragon School University of Oxford (B.A., 1949; ) |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Spouse | Faith Faulconbridge Baillie Klass |
| Children | 3, including Simon Tolkien |
| Relatives |
J.R.R. Tolkien (father) Edith Tolkien (mother) Tim Tolkien (first cousin, once removed) See Tolkien family |
Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (born 21 November 1924) is the third son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T.
Christopher Tolkien was born in Leeds, the third and youngest son of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his wife, Edith Tolkien (née Bratt). He was educated at the Dragon School (Oxford) and later at the Oratory School.
He entered the Royal Air Force in summer 1943 and was sent to South Africa for flight training, completing the elementary flying course at 7 Air School, Kroonstad, and the service flying course at 25 Air School, Standerton. He was commissioned into the general duties branch of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 27 January 1945 as a pilot officer on probation (emergency). He was given the service number 193121. He briefly served as an RAF pilot. He transferred to the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on 28 June 1945. His commission was confirmed and it was announced he was promoted to flying officer (war substantive) on 27 July 1945.
After the war he studied English at Oxford University, taking his BA in 1949 and his B.Litt a few years later.
Tolkien had long been part of the critical audience for his father's fiction, first as a child listening to tales of Bilbo Baggins (which were published as The Hobbit), and then as a teenager and young adult offering much feedback on The Lord of the Rings during its 15-year gestation. He had the task of interpreting his father's sometimes self-contradictory maps of Middle-earth in order to produce the versions used in the books, and he re-drew the main map in the late 1970s to clarify the lettering and correct some errors and omissions. J. R. R. Tolkien invited Christopher to join the Inklings when he was twenty-one years old, making him the youngest member of the informal literary discussion society that included C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Warren Lewis, Lord David Cecil, and Nevill Coghill.
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