The original publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings consisted of three volumes. They are The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
Although the work is one continuous novel, Tolkien structured it as six internal books plus appendices. His publisher issued it in three physical volumes partly because of postwar paper shortages and production costs. The first volume appeared in 1954, followed by the second and third in 1954 and 1955.
The trilogy format sometimes leads readers to call the work a trilogy in the sense of three separate novels. More precisely, Tolkien regarded it as a single large narrative divided into volumes for publication. Each volume contains parts of the larger story rather than representing a wholly independent novel.
The titles of the volumes are often abbreviated as Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return. The Return of the King was the third volume, not a separate sequel. Later editions have also appeared in one-volume and boxed three-volume formats.