Did Christopher Tolkien edit Chaucer and Sir Gawain?

Yes, outside of his work on his father J. R. R. Tolkien's posthumous legendarium, Christopher Tolkien edited three tales by Geoffrey Chaucer alongside Nevill Coghill. He also edited his father's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Scholars note that his experience editing these medieval texts honed the philological skills he later applied to his father's Middle-earth writings.

What we know

• Christopher Tolkien edited three tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in collaboration with Nevill Coghill. [2]
• Christopher Tolkien edited his father J. R. R. Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. [2]
• Many posthumous works by J. R. R. Tolkien were edited by his son, literary scholar and editor Christopher Tolkien. [2, 3]
• Tolkien scholars noted that Christopher Tolkien used his philological skills gained from editing medieval works to collate and edit his father's writings. [2]

Where to go next

• a case in pointWhat did Christopher Tolkien edit from his father's works?
• how it workedHow did philology influence Middle-earth's editing?
• whoWho was J. R. R. Tolkien?
• the bigger pictureWhat are Geoffrey Chaucer's major literary works?
• how we knowHow did Christopher Tolkien contribute to The Lord of the Rings?
• an unexpected connectionHow did medieval editing shape fantasy legends?Christopher Tolkien treated his father's fictional Middle-earth writings exactly like real-world medieval legends because of his background editing Chaucer and Sir Gawain.

Sources

• [1]Christopher Tolkien (Wikidata Q82032) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Christopher Tolkien · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]J. R. R. Tolkien bibliography · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Geoffrey Chaucer · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Smaug · CC BY-SA 4.0