The first published edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was issued in three volumes.
The volumes were The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. George Allen & Unwin published them separately in the United Kingdom between 1954 and 1955, with the first volume appearing in July 1954 and the final volume in October 1955.
Tolkien conceived the work as a single long novel rather than three independent novels. Paper shortages and production costs helped lead the publisher to release it in separate volumes. Each volume also contains two internal “books,” so the complete work is divided into six books plus appendices.
A common mix-up comes from counting the six internal books or the three volumes as separate novels. The standard bibliographic answer is three volumes. The story’s three-part structure later influenced, but is not identical to, the three-film adaptation directed by Peter Jackson.