Which company published the first authorized English edition of The Lord of the Rings?

George Allen & Unwin published the first authorized English edition of The Lord of the Rings.

The novel was released in three volumes: The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954, followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King in 1955. George Allen & Unwin was Tolkien’s British publisher and had already issued The Hobbit in 1937.

The American publication history is more complicated. Houghton Mifflin published the book in the United States, while an unauthorized paperback edition by Ace Books triggered a copyright dispute in the 1960s. A new authorized American paperback edition then helped drive the novel’s enormous popularity among younger readers.

Because the work is commonly discussed as a single novel, readers sometimes name a later American publisher or confuse the publisher with a modern corporate successor. The historically precise answer for the first authorized English edition is George Allen & Unwin.