The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, was published in 1954.
Allen & Unwin released the book on 29 July 1954 in the United Kingdom. It was followed by The Two Towers later that year and The Return of the King in 1955. Tolkien conceived the work as one continuous novel, but it was published in three volumes for practical and economic reasons.
The first volume introduces the One Ring’s history, Frodo Baggins’s inheritance of it, and the formation of the Fellowship in Rivendell. The narrative ends after the Fellowship breaks apart at Amon Hen. The title can cause confusion because the entire work is often called a trilogy, while The Fellowship of the Ring is specifically only its first published volume. Tolkien’s earlier novel The Hobbit, published in 1937, provides the story’s important background.