What is the name of the first chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings?

The first chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is titled “A Long-expected Party.”

The chapter opens The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of Tolkien’s three-volume epic. It introduces Hobbiton’s preparations for Bilbo Baggins’s eleventy-first birthday party and the unusual decision to combine the celebration with Frodo Baggins’s thirty-third birthday. Bilbo’s farewell speech and disappearance with the Ring create the book’s first major mystery.

The chapter is followed by “The Shadow of the Past,” in which Gandalf explains the Ring’s true nature and its connection to Sauron. A frequent mistake is to give that second chapter as the opening chapter, because it contains the crucial exposition about the Ring. Chapter titles also differ in punctuation and capitalization among editions, but “A Long-expected Party” is the established title of the first chapter.