J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings began publication as a three-volume set in 1954.
The first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published in the United Kingdom on 29 July 1954. The Two Towers followed later that year, and The Return of the King appeared in 1955. The work is one novel in story and design, but it was issued in three volumes for practical publishing reasons.
Tolkien had begun the project as a possible sequel to The Hobbit, but it grew into a much longer and more serious work. Its plot follows the destruction of the One Ring and the war against Sauron, while its appendices provide additional history, languages, and genealogies.
The books were not originally released as three separate novels in the modern sense. Their titles identify the volumes of one continuous work, and Tolkien preferred the collective title The Lord of the Rings.