The Lord of the Rings: Why It Isn't Really a Trilogy

The Lord of the Rings is J. R. R. Tolkien's epic high fantasy novel, set in Middle-earth. Hobbits and a Fellowship try to destroy the One Ring, made by the Dark Lord Sauron, in the fires of Mount Doom. And no, it is not really a trilogy. It is one novel, divided into six books, that was published in three volumes for economic reasons.

The route from a publisher's request for 'more hobbits' to one of the best-known books in fantasy is a strange one. This article covers what happens in the story, how Tolkien wrote it, and how readers have interpreted it. It is about the book, not the films.

The short answer: one novel, three volumes

Tolkien's work is divided internally into six books, two to each of the three volumes. It also has appendices of chronologies, genealogies and linguistic information. He intended it as one volume of a two-volume set, with The Silmarillion as the other. The Tolkien Estate says the book was so large that, for material reasons, it came out in three volumes, and that it has therefore been wrongly considered a trilogy.

The publisher was Allen & Unwin. The Fellowship of the Ring appeared on 29 July 1954, The Two Towers on 11 November 1954 and The Return of the King on 20 October 1955. A box set followed in 1957. A single-volume edition arrived in 1968, with a cover by Pauline Baynes, and the first single-volume edition ran to 1077 pages.

It helps to think of the three titles as parts of one long book, bound separately. The first volume ends at Amon Hen with the quest far from over, so it reads as a pause in the journey rather than an ending.

What happens in the story

The story follows the quest to destroy the One Ring, seen mainly through the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. The title refers to the Dark Lord Sauron, who created the Ring in an earlier age. The Ring is to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom.

The Fellowship of the Ring opens with Bilbo passing the Ring to his 'nephew' Frodo. At Bree, Aragorn joins the hobbits. The group then reaches Rivendell, where the Council of Elrond forms the Fellowship of nine: Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli and Boromir.

The company travels through Moria and Lothlórien, and the first volume ends at Amon Hen. Because the story simply continues in the later books, the three-part split feels like a pause in one story rather than three separate tales.

From 'more hobbits' to a darker epic

After the success of The Hobbit in 1937, Allen & Unwin refused to publish The Silmarillion and asked for a sequel instead. The Tolkien Estate says the publisher wanted more hobbits, in a short new adventure for Bilbo. Tolkien began in December 1937.

He first intended another children's tale like The Hobbit, but it grew darker and more serious. In a letter of 31 August 1938, Tolkien said it was "getting quite out of hand".

Early drafts looked quite different. Strider was first called Trotter and was just a hobbit. The story might have opened with a conversation between Gandalf and 'Bingo Bolger-Baggins'. That scene developed into 'The Shadow of the Past'. Frodo's name also shifted between characters as the drafts changed.

A twelve-year writing process

The book was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, and Tolkien spent more than ten years on the main narrative and the appendices. He began with no idea where the story would go, made several false starts and changed character names many times. He also held a full-time academic post and marked exams for extra income, so progress was slow.

The timeline was stop-start. He began in late 1937 and paused in December 1939. He restarted in August 1940, paused in 1941, restarted in 1942 and abandoned the book for most of 1943. In April 1944 he rewrote the first chapters, then paused again in 1945. In 1946 he reworked Book 5, in 1948 he wrote Book 6, and in 1949 he revised the earlier books.

Christopher Tolkien, his son, was serving with the RAF in South Africa, and Tolkien sent him chapters. The Estate says Christopher read much of the book in serial form while training as a fighter pilot, and that the Inklings, chiefly C. S. Lewis, also heard parts. Tolkien showed the manuscript to his publishers in 1947.

Volumes I and II were printed in 1954. The appendices were written in 1955, and Volume III was printed in October 1955. The Estate says paper and production costs after the war meant the facsimile 'burnt' pages of the Book of Mazarbul were dropped, and only the maps and appendices were kept.

Influences and how readers have interpreted it

Tolkien's influences include philology, mythology, Christianity, earlier fantasy and his own First World War experience. The Estate adds that the book was also a tribute to companions he lost in that war.

He presents the book as a translation of an ancient document, the Red Book of Westmarch. That invented book is modelled on the real Red Book of Hergest.

Readings of the novel vary. One sees freedom and nature, an idea embraced by American students in the 1960s. Another sees medievalist nostalgia, and a third sees a mirror of the Second World War. The Estate says that last reading shows less awareness of Tolkien's intentions. If you are curious how magic works in stories like this, our article on how magic systems work is a good next step.

Its reach: sales, translations and reputation

The Tolkien Estate says the book has been translated into over fifty languages, and the Tolkien Society says around fifty. Sales are put at around 150 million, but treat that as a claim. Reliable point-of-sale data only goes back to the 1990s. Wikipedia excludes the work from its ranked best-sellers list because it has been sold as three volumes, as one volume and as six volumes. One HarperCollins single-volume edition was recorded as selling 967,466 copies in the UK by 2009.

In 2003 a BBC poll, The Big Read, named it Britain's best-loved novel. A radio adaptation appeared in 1981, and there is also a musical. The Tolkien Society notes that a definitive 50th Anniversary Edition appeared in 2004 and the first ebook in 2009.

So the label 'trilogy' is a habit that grew out of how the book was printed, not how Tolkien built it. Seen as one novel in six books, the long, stop-start writing makes more sense.