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The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. The novel serves as a sequel to The Hobbit.
The work was originally conceived as having six parts:
Book I: Return of the Shadow
Book II: The Fellowship of the Ring
Book III: The Treason of Isengard
Book IV: The Journey to Mordor
Book V: The War of the Ring
Book VI: The Return of the King
Tolkien's publisher, however, chose to issue the story in three volumes:
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King (includes 6 appendices and 4 indexes)
From this division it became regarded by some as a trilogy or even "The Trilogy".
For the sake of brevity when referencing, the name of the whole novel is often abbreviated to LoTR, and of its three volumes respectively to FoTR, TTT and RoTK.
Publication history
The three parts were published for the first time in 1954-1955 (several months apart). They were later on re-issued numerous times, both as a single volume, as 3 volumes, and even as 7 volumes (based on the original division into 6 books and appendices). One of the current prints is available as ISBN 0-618-12902-2. The books have also been translated, with various degrees of success, into dozens of other languages besides English.
In the early 1960s, the American paperback publisher Ace books realised that, due to a quirk of American copyright law, the Lord of the Rings was not copyrighted in the USA. They proceeded to distribute an unauthorized edition, to Tolkien's outrage. Tolkien made this plain to US fans who wrote to him, and the grass-roots pressure grew so great that Ace books were forced to withdraw their edition, making a nominal payment to Tolkien as acknowledgement that they had been in the wrong. Authorised editions followed, from other publishers, to great success. This remarkable work by the mid-1960s had become, especially in its appeal to young people, a sociocultural phenomenon.
The enormous popular success of Tolkien's epic story gave rise to a slew of imitators and hopeful rivals. The genre of fantasy fiction had existed before the publication of The Lord of the Rings (as seen in pulp fiction adventures), but beginning in the 1960s a large number of writers followed in the Professor's footsteps. A number of genuinely exciting, well-written books of this genre were published (comparable works include the Earthsea books of Ursula K. Leguin and the Thomas Covenant novels of Stephen R. Donaldson), though a great number of cliched "fantasy adventure" stories were also published. The term "Tolkienesque" came to refer to the cliched idea of a group of adventurers embarking on a quest to save a magical fantasy world from the armies of an evil "dark lord."
The Books
The Lord of the Rings is heavily influenced by Tolkien's interest in philology, fairy tales, Norse and Celtic mythology. The "Ring that rules the world but betrays its bearer" idea was also explored earlier in Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung, which comes from similar roots. Tolkien went further though; he designed a complete mythology for his realm of Middle-earth, including genealogies of characters, languages, runes, calendars and histories. Much of this supplementary material is detailed in appendices to LoTR, and the mythological history was woven into a large, biblically-styled volume entitled the Silmarillion.
The plot of the Lord of the Rings follows directly from his earlier book The Hobbit and more obliquely from the history in the Silmarillion.
The hobbits of Tolkien's earlier tale become embroiled in great events that threaten their entire world, as Sauron, the embodiment of evil, attempts to regain the lost One Ring which will restore him to full potency.
The Silmarillion deals with the first two ages, or epochs, of Middle Earth's history, as well as its corresponding version of Earth's creation myth. An omnipotent being, Ilúvatar, creates several gods and goddesses to form the world through music; during the music, however, one god - Melkor, the most powerful - altered his tune, sending the music into discord. Melkor delved further into evil, destroying everything good and beautiful that the other gods created. Eventually, he was captured and imprisoned for ages after attempting to corrupt the recently-born Elves. When he was released, he feigned friendship with the Elves and the gods until he, with the aid of a giant spider known as Ungoliant, destroyed the Two Trees of Light in the gods' land of Valinor, sending the world into darkness. He then stole the Silmarils, gems crafted by the most gifted of elves, Feanor. Feanor was swept into a madness that left him bloodthirsty for revenge, and swore an oath along with his sons, brothers, and nephews to recover the precious jewels.
The bulk of the The Silmarillion deals with the struggle of Feanor's people, the Noldor Elves, and their exile from Valinor to Middle Earth, where they are continually tormented by the seemingly all-powerful Melknor - now called Morgoth ("the Enemy"). The latter end of the book deals with the coming of Men, known as the Second Kindred and their beginnings, including the Fall of Numenor and the creation of Gondor. The first War of the Ring is told in full, and it is necessary to note the direct connections between Sauron and his master, Morgoth, in order to better understand The Lord of the Rings.
There were plans for the Beatles to do a version of The Lord of the Rings but they came to nothing. It was even said that Stanley Kubrick had looked into the possibility of filming the trilogy, but he abandoned the idea as too "immense" to be made into a movie.
Warner Brothers produced an animated adaptation of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" in 1978. JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Ring incorporated animation over live action sequences, and was directed by Ralph Bakshi. The animated film The Return of the King was released in 1980 by the same producer. An animated version of the prequel Hobbit was released in 1978. The animated films were originally made for TV broadcast, as the regular cliffhanger pauses for commercial breaks attest.
Three live action films, directed by Peter Jackson have been filmed. The Fellowship of the Ring was released in December 2001 (and won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation of 2001). The Two Towers was released in December 2002 and The Return of the King is scheduled to be released in December 2003.
Characters from The Fellowship of the Ring
Frodo Baggins
Samwise "Sam" Gamgee
Peregrin "Pippin" Took
Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck
Aragorn
Boromir
Legolas
Gimli
Gandalf
Other Characters
Bilbo Baggins
Bill the Pony
Bill Ferny
Elrond
Galadriel
Gollum
Saruman
Sauron
Tom Bombadil
Goldberry
Treebeard
Fredegar `Fatty' Bolger
Pop culture references to The Lord of the Rings
Led Zeppelin's music: Misty Mountain Hop is named after Tolkien's Misty Mountains; Ramble On refers to Mordor and Battle Of Evermore is an actual allegory from the "Battle of Pelennor Fields" from Return of the King
Rush has a song called 'Rivendell' on their Fly By Night album.
Swedish musician Bo Hansson has made an entire instrumental album based on The Lord of the Rings
The Brobdingnagian Bards have named one of their tracks 'Tolkien', and the remix 'The Lord of the Rings'
The TV show Babylon 5 includes occasional homages to The Lord of the Rings, as well as epic themes drawn from similar mythological roots.
The Harvard Lampoon satire Bored of the Rings.
The books were an enormous influence on the Dungeons & Dragons game, and subsequently on the entire field of role-playing games.