The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. It was published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955. Three movie productions have been made, the first, by animator Ralph Bakshi was released in 1978 (as part one of what was originally to be a two-part adaptation of the story), the second being a 1980 television special, and the third being director Peter Jackson's film trilogy released in 2001, 2002, and 2003.

Books and volumes

Writing

Tolkien did not originally intend to write a sequel to The Hobbit, and instead wrote several other children's tales, including Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham. As his main work, Tolkien began to outline the history of Arda, telling tales of the Silmarils, and many other stories of how the races and situations that we read about in the Lord of the Rings trilogy came to be. Tolkien died before he could complete and put together The Silmarillion, but his son Christopher Tolkien edited his father's work, filled in gaps and published in 1977.

Related Topics:
The Hobbit - Roverandom - Farmer Giles of Ham - Arda - Silmarils - The Silmarillion - Christopher Tolkien

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Tolkien had a deep desire to write a mythology for England, especially after his horrific experiences during the First World War. He was also influenced by the effects of continued industralisation, where he saw much of the England he loved passing away and became aware of the immense evil in the world. Thus to understand his writings we must be aware of how Tolkien the scholar influences Tolkien the author. His writing of this mythology emerges as an Oxford philologist well acquainted with Northern European Medieval Literature including the great mythic works such as the Hervarar saga, the Völsunga saga, the influential Beowulf as well as other Old Norse, Old and Middle English Texts. He was also inspired by non-Germanic works such as the Finnish epic Kalevala. A man who had created his first language by the age of seven, he was driven by a desire to write a mythology for England influenced by his exposure and expertise of these ancient traditions. The need for such a myth was often a topic of conversation in his meetings with the Inklings, fellow Oxford scholars who have been described as Christian Romantics, meeting weekly and discussing Icelandic myths and their own unpublished compositions. Tolkien agreed with one of the other members of the group, C.S. Lewis, that if there were no adequate myths for England then they would have to write their own. Tolkien's work has been commonly interpreted in this light.

Related Topics:
Mythology - First World War - Hervarar saga - Völsunga saga - Beowulf - Kalevala - The Inklings - C.S. Lewis

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Persuaded by his publishers, he started 'a new hobbit' in December 1937. After several false starts, the story of the One Ring soon emerged, and the book mutated from being a sequel to the Hobbit, to being, in theme, more a sequel to the unpublished Silmarillion. The idea of the first chapter (A Long-Expected Party) arrived fully-formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, and the significance of the Ring did not arrive, along with the title The Lord of the Rings until spring 1938. Originally he was going to write another story in which Bilbo had used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more; however he remembered the ring and the powers it had and decided to write about that instead. He started to write it with Bilbo as the main character but decided that the story was too serious to use the fun loving Hobbit so Tolkien looked to use a member of Bilbo's family. He thought about using Bilbo's son but this generated some difficult questions — Where was his wife? How could Bilbo let his son go into that kind of danger? — so he looked for an alternate character to carry the ring. In Greek legend, it was a hero's nephew that gained the item of power, and so into existence came the Hobbit Frodo.

Related Topics:
1937 - Sequel - Silmarillion - 1938

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Writing was slow due to Tolkien's perfectionism, and was frequently interrupted by his obligations as an examiner, and other academic duties. In fact, the first sentence of The Hobbit was written on a blank page a student had left on an exam paper that Tolkien was grading — "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit". He seems to have abandoned the book during most of 1943 and only re-started it in April 1944. This effort was written as a serial for Christopher Tolkien and C.S. Lewis — the former would be sent copies of chapters as they were written while he was serving in Africa in the Royal Air Force. He made another push in 1946, and showed a copy of the manuscript to his publishers in 1947. The story was effectively finished the next year, but Tolkien did not finish revising earlier parts of the work until 1949.

Related Topics:
Examiner - The Hobbit - 1943 - 1944 - Christopher Tolkien - C.S. Lewis - Africa - Royal Air Force - 1946 - 1947 - 1949

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A dispute with his publishers, Allen & Unwin, led to the book being offered to Collins in 1950. He intended the Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but A&U were unwilling to do this. After his contact at Collins, Milton Waldman, expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself 'urgently needed cutting', he eventually demanded that they publish the book in 1952. They did not do so, and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin, saying "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the stuff".

Related Topics:
Allen & Unwin - Collins - 1950 - 1952

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Publication

For publication, due largely to post-war paper shortages, but also to keep the price of the first volume down, the book was divided into three volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring: Books I and II; The Two Towers: Books III and IV; and The Return of the King: Books V and VI, 6 appendices). Delays in producing appendices and maps led to these being published later than originally hoped — on the 29 July and 11 November 1954 and 20 October 1955 in the United Kingdom, slightly later in the United States. The Return of the King was especially delayed. He did not, however, much like the title The Return of the King, believing it gave away too much of the storyline. He had originally suggested The War of the Ring which was dismissed by his publishers.

Related Topics:
The Fellowship of the Ring - The Two Towers - The Return of the King - 29 July - 11 November - 1954 - 20 October - 1955 - United Kingdom - United States - The War of the Ring

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The books were published under a 'profit-sharing' arrangement, where Tolkien would not receive an advance or royalties until the books had broken even, but after then take a large share of the profits.

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An index to the entire 3-volume set at the end of third volume was promised in the first volume. However, this proved impractical to compile in a reasonable timescale. Later, in 1966, four indices which were not compiled by Tolkien were added to The Return of the King.

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Because the three-volume binding was so widely distributed, the work is usually referred to as the Lord of the Rings "trilogy". Tolkien himself made use of the term "trilogy" for the work, though he did at other times consider this incorrect, as it was written and conceived as a single novel.

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A 1999 (Millennium Edition) British (ISBN 0-261-10387-3) 7-volume box set followed the six-book division authored by Tolkien, but with the Appendices from the end of Book VI bound as a separate volume. The letters of Tolkien appear on the spines of the boxed set which includes a CD.

Related Topics:
1999 - British

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The individual names for books in this series were decided posthumously, based on a combination of suggestions Tolkien had made during his lifetime, title of the volumes, and whole cloth — viz:

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• T Book I: The Ring Sets Out
• O Book II: The Ring Goes South
• L Book III: The Treason of Isengard
• K Book IV: The Ring Goes East
• I Book V: The War of the Ring
• E Book VI: The End of the Third Age
• N Appendices

The name of the complete work is often abbreviated to 'LotR', 'LOTR', or simply 'LR', and the three volumes as FR, FOTR, or FotR (The Fellowship of the Ring), TT or TTT (The Two Towers), and RK, ROTK, or RotK (The Return of the King).

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Note that the three titles The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard and The War of the Ring were used by Christopher Tolkien in The History of The Lord of the Rings.

Related Topics:
Christopher Tolkien - The History of The Lord of the Rings

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Some locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood in Sarehole, then a Warwickshire village, now part of Birmingham, and in Birmingham itself.

Related Topics:
Sarehole - Warwickshire - Birmingham

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