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    The answers address the question posed well, but as a side note, as long as the elder Tolkein still owned the rights in question at the time of his death, someone was going to inherit them. The dead do not own anything. It didn't have to be Christopher who received them, but the question seems to suppose that there might be a scenario in which no one could lawfully have done what Christopher did, and that's not the case.
    – John Bollinger
    Commented Jul 1 at 14:15
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    – galacticninja
    Commented Jul 2 at 2:50
  • 3
    I doubt JRRT had much concern, or any, for what happened with his papers after his death. He was a devout Catholic Christian, and as he expected to either be in Heaven or Hell, in neither case would anything left on Earth have any significance whatsoever (other than the welfare of his family).
    – RC_23
    Commented Jul 2 at 4:43
  • @JohnBollinger: I don’t read the question as primarily about legal rights or permissions — much more about personal and moral permission, J.R.R. Tolkien’s intentions and preferences.
    – PLL
    Commented Jul 2 at 11:03
  • –1 "downright misleading" is a falsehood. Not just in the case of Tolkien, but in the case of any author. It is not the case that a published work of fiction is more or less real than unpublished work. As long as authorship and posthumous contribution is made clear, such works may range from "this how the story developed" (e.g., Unfinished Tales), to "here are the contours of the story (The Silmarillion)", to "here's an alternative take" to "here's a novel story" (with your without fleshing out). "Misleading" implies that there's a real fictional story, as opposed to a preferred one.
    – Lexible
    Commented Jul 10 at 14:51