Across how many volumes was J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings first published?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was first published in three volumes.

The three volumes were The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. George Allen & Unwin published them between July 1954 and October 1955. Tolkien conceived the work as one long novel, but paper shortages and publishing practicalities contributed to its appearance in separate volumes.

The volume structure is sometimes mistaken for a trilogy in the sense of three independently planned novels. Tolkien regarded the work as a single story divided into books and volumes. The first volume contains a prologue and Books One and Two; the second contains Books Three and Four; and the third contains Books Five and Six, plus appendices.

The title of the third volume also caused Tolkien some hesitation because he considered it a spoiler. Nevertheless, The Return of the King became the standard title. The three-volume format shaped how generations of readers encountered the story.