J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings first appeared as a complete three-volume publication in 1955.
The three volumes were The Fellowship of the Ring, published in 1954, The Two Towers, published later in 1954, and The Return of the King, published in 1955. The complete publication date is therefore 1955, even though readers had already encountered the opening two volumes.
Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to The Hobbit, but it developed into a much larger work with a darker tone, extensive history, and multiple narrative threads. The publisher’s decision to issue it in three volumes was connected partly to postwar paper shortages and production costs, not to Tolkien’s original conception as three separate novels.
The volume titles can also cause confusion. Tolkien initially considered different naming arrangements, and he disliked the title The Return of the King because he felt it revealed too much. Despite that concern, it became the established title of the final volume.