Posted: January 05, 19100 at 22:13:49: by Michael Martinez
: On another Tolkien board, we briefly discussed the fact that
: Christopher Tolkien not only chose and edited his father's
: material to make the published Silmarillion, but that he admits
: to actually writing some small amount of it. Someone mentioned
: Guy Gavriel Kay, who might have written some himself, since
: Christopher "was an editor but not a writer". I know little
: about this subject, so I am asking all of you: what is the
: evidence for actual authorship of parts of Silm. by people
: other than JRR?Guy Kay actually had very little to do with the book. I don't recall offhand, but I've seen some people estimate that JRRT wrote anywhere from 75 to 99 percent of the book. I'm more inclined to favor the 75 percent than the 99 percent. Sections which are essentially "written" by Christopher, even though he may only have been compressing much older material, include "Of Beren and Luthien", "Of Turin Turambar", "Of Maeglin", "Of the Ruin of Doriath", and "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin". Other chapters felt the editorial hand less heavily, and some were lifted almost word-for-word from older narratives.
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