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Thursday, January 16, 2020

Christopher Tolkien has died at the age of 95.

As reported by the Tolkien Society Christopher has died at the age of 95. The full story is found here.



Over on Reddit the r/tolkienfans group has kindly posted a translation of the story in a French Newspaper. It says in part:
The son of JRR Tolkien was 95 years old. He passed away last night in a hospital of Provence, South Eastern France, where he lived.
Source in French, the local newspaper.
Christopher, the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, died in the Var at the age of 95.
Global Earthquake in the Kingdom of Heroic Fantasy! Christopher Tolkien disappeared during the night of Wednesday to Thursday at the Centre Hospitalier de la DracĂ©nie (CHD) where he had just been admitted for health problems. 
All his life, this erudite scholar had lived in the shadow of giants as well as small hobbits. The ransom of the glory of being the son of the British master, but also the story of an extraordinary literary transmission between a father and his son...
Another story in The Guardian can be found here. It says in part of a lengthy post:
Tolkien, who was born in Leeds in 1924, was the third and youngest son of the revered fantasy author and his wife Edith. He grew up listening to his father’s tales of Bilbo Baggins, which later became the children’s fantasy novel, The Hobbit.
He drew many of the original maps detailing the world of Middle-earth for his father’s The Lord of the Rings when the series was first published between 1954 and 55. He also edited much of his father’s posthumously published work following his death in 1973. Since 1975 he had lived in France with Baillie.
(Note Baillie was his wife)

Without Christopher Tolkien the bulk of his father's work would have remained shrouded in mystery. Reportedly when he took on the task of curating his father work, he had a  mountain of documents to go through and out of them he brought many things to light and published much of it, fleshing out the history of The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, giving us all a deep look into the creation of his father J.R.R Tolkien. Many of the wonderful maps we are familiar with were created by him out of that mountain of documents. He was a faithful son in honoring his father's work and protecting that legacy. He left behind a loving family and a loving fandom grateful for his years of hard, but fruitful work. 

I will close with this quote from his father:
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. J.R.R.Tolkien
He chose to honor his father with the time he was given, we are all richer for that choice.

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