The Fellowship of the Ring was published in Britain on 29 July 1954.
It was the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, which Allen & Unwin issued as a three-part novel because of postwar paper shortages and the work’s considerable length. The book contains a prologue, “The Shadow of the Past,” and two main sections called books, ending after the Fellowship reaches the breaking point of its journey.
The story begins in the Shire with Bilbo Baggins’s birthday party and follows Frodo Baggins after he inherits the One Ring. Gandalf identifies the Ring as the dangerous Ruling Ring of Sauron, leading Frodo to leave the Shire. The Fellowship is formed at Rivendell to help carry the Ring toward its destruction.
The second volume, The Two Towers, appeared later in 1954, while The Return of the King followed in 1955. The trilogy was not originally conceived as three separate novels, so volume divisions do not always correspond to completely independent story arcs.