How many volumes was 'The Lord of the Rings'?

mk2norwich

Three. They are, in order, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. May 14 02, 5:16 AM

Saint Dirt the Headstrong

I can't give much in the way of sources for this, but The Lord of the Rings was written as six books, two of which form each of the three volumes in which it was originally published (The Fellowship of the Rings, 1954; The Two Towers, 1954; The Return of the King, 1955). In my one-volume paperback (seventh impression, 1971) I've pencilled in the titles as: Book I The First Journey; Book II The Journey of the Nine Companions; Book III The Treason of Isengard; Book IV The Journey of the Ring-bearers; Book V The War of the Ring; Book VI The End of the Third Age. I can't remember where I got those from. In the Foreword to that edition (I don't know whether it appears in later editions) Tolkien refers to writing it in sections corresponding to those books: Book I, Book II, Book III, Book V, Book IV, Book VI in that order. As I understand it, when it came to publishing it, despite the moderate success of The Hobbit, George Allen and Unwin didn't want to risk publishing The Lord of the Rings as one volume. So they published the first two books first, on the principle that they could pull out if nobody bought it. I assume Tolkien was responsible for the names of the three published volumes, though it's possible they may be down to some unsung sub-editor at GA and U. Does anyone know? May 15 02, 10:54 PM

Gnomon

Tolkien came up with names for the three volumes himself. Originally, he called the second volume 'The Two Towers' because it was about Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, the towers of the Sun and Moon, but after he had sent the title to the publishers, he realised that Minas Tirith does not feature in that volume, so he came up with the explanation that it was about Minas Morgul and Orthanc, which he put in an explanatory note which was published at the end of the first volume. May 27 02, 1:42 PM

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