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- This article is about the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. For other uses, see The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation).
Cover design for the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier fantasy book The Hobbit and soon developed into a much larger story. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, with much of it being written during World War II.[1] It was originally published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955,[2] and has since been reprinted numerous times and translated into at least 38 different languages,[3] becoming one of the most popular works in twentieth-century literature.
The action in The Lord of the Rings is set in what the author conceived to be the lands of the real Earth, inhabited by humanity but placed in a fictional past, before our history but after the fall of his version of Atlantis.[4] Tolkien gave this setting a modern English name, Middle-earth, a rendering of the Old English Middangeard.[5]
The story concerns peoples such as Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Wizards, and Orcs (called goblins in The Hobbit), and centres on the Ring of Power made by the Dark Lord Sauron. Starting from quiet beginnings in The Shire, the story ranges across Middle-earth and follows the courses of the War of the Ring. The main story is followed by six appendices that provide a wealth of historical and linguistic background material,[6] as well as an index listing every character, place and sword.
Along with Tolkien's other writings, The Lord of the Rings has been subjected to extensive analysis of its literary themes and origins. Although a major work in itself, the story is merely the last movement of a larger mythological cycle, or legendarium, that Tolkien had worked on for many years since 1917.[7] Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology and religion, as well as earlier fantasy works and Tolkien's experiences in World War I. The Lord of the Rings in its turn is considered to have had a great impact on modern fantasy, and the impact of Tolkien's works is such that the use of the words "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" have been recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary.[8]
The immense and enduring popularity of The Lord of the Rings has led to numerous references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans of Tolkien's works, and a large number of books about Tolkien and his works being published. The Lord of the Rings has inspired (and continues to inspire) short stories, video games, artworks and musical works (see Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien). Numerous adaptations of Tolkien's works have been made for a wide range of media. Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings in particular have been made for the radio, for the theatre, and for film. The 2001–2003 release of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy saw a surge of interest in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's other works.[9]
Back story
The back story begins thousands of years before the action in the book, with the rise of the eponymous Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord Sauron, a malevolent incarnated immortal spiritual being who possessed great supernatural powers and who later becomes the ruler of the dreaded realm of Mordor. At the end of the First Age of Middle-earth, Sauron survived the catastrophic defeat and exile of his master, the ultimate evil figure, Morgoth (who was formerly counted one of the Valar, the angelic Powers of the world). During the Second Age, Sauron schemed to gain dominion over Middle-earth. In disguise as "Annatar" or Lord of Gifts, he aided Celebrimbor and the other Elven-smiths of Eregion in the forging of magical rings which confer various powers and effects on their wearers. The most important of these were nineteen, called the Rings of Power or Great Rings.
However, he then secretly forged a Great Ring of his own, the One Ring, by which he planned to enslave the wearers of the other Rings of Power. This plan failed when the Elves became aware of him and took off their Rings. Sauron then launched a war during which he captured sixteen and distributed them to lords and kings of Dwarves and Men; these Rings were known as the Seven and the Nine respectively. The Dwarf-lords proved too tough to enslave although their natural desire for wealth, especially gold, increased; therefore bringing more conflict between them and other races. The Men who possessed the Nine were slowly corrupted over time and eventually became the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, Sauron's most feared servants. Three, he failed to capture, and they remained in the possession of the Elves (who had forged these independently). The war ended as the Men of the island-nation of Númenor, the greatest such nation in the world, helped the besieged Elves, and Sauron's forces retreated from the coasts of Eriador. At this time he still held most of Middle-earth, excluding Imladris (Rivendell) and the Lune.
Over 1500 years later, word reached the current king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn, that Sauron had been bearing the title "Lord of all Middle-earth". This provoked Ar-Pharazôn and gave him an opportunity to show the glory and strength of Númenor. He arrived in Middle-earth with such overwhelming force that Sauron's armies fled at the sight of them. Abandoned by his minions, Sauron surrendered to the Númenóreans, and was taken to Númenor as a "prisoner". Sauron then started to poison the minds of the Númenóreans against the Valar. Thus, Sauron set into motion the events that brought about Númenor's destruction. He did this by corrupting the King's mind, telling him that the immortality of the Elves was his to take if he set foot upon the lands of Aman, the Blessed Realm, where Valinor, the realm of the Valar, was located. With old age on his mind, Ar-Pharazôn lead an invasion of Aman and Valinor with the greatest host seen since the War of Wrath. However, upon reaching Aman, he and his army were buried by a landslide, and there they remained until the Final Battle in Tolkien's eschatology. Manwë, King of the Valar, called upon Ilúvatar (God), who opened a great chasm in the sea, destroying Númenor, and removed the Undying Lands from the mortal world. The destruction of Númenor destroyed Sauron's fair and handsome physical body, but his spirit returned to Mordor and assumed a new form — black, burning hot (though he was not on fire), and terrible.
Over 100 years later, he launched an attack against the Númenórean exiles (the Faithful, who did not join Ar-Pharazôn's expedition), who had managed to escape to Middle-earth. However, the exiles (led by Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion) have time to prepare, and, forming the Last Alliance of Elves and Men with the Elven-king Gil-galad, they marched against Mordor, defeated Sauron on the plain of Dagorlad, and besieged Barad-dûr, at which time Anárion was slain. After seven years of siege, Sauron himself was ultimately forced to engage in single combat with the leaders. Gil-galad and Elendil perished as they combated Sauron, and Elendil's sword Narsil broke beneath him. However, Sauron's body was also overcome and slain,[4] and Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand with the hilt-shard of Narsil, and at this Sauron's spirit fled and did not reappear in his terrible form for many centuries. Isildur was advised to destroy the One Ring by the only way it can be — by casting it into the volcanic Mount Doom where it was forged — but he refused, attracted to its beauty and kept it as compensation for the deaths of his father and brother (weregild).
So began the Third Age of Middle-earth. Two years later, while journeying to Rivendell, Isildur and his soldiers were ambushed by a band of Orcs at what would be called the Disaster of the Gladden Fields. While the latter were almost all killed, Isildur escaped by putting on the Ring — which made mortal wearers invisible. However, the Ring slipped from his finger while he was swimming in the great River Anduin; he was killed by Orc-arrows and the Ring was lost for two millennia. It was then found by chance by a hobbit named Déagol. His relative and friend[4] Sméagol, strangled him for the Ring and was banished from his home by his maternal grandmother. He fled to the Misty Mountains where he slowly withered and became a disgusting, slimy creature called Gollum.
In The Hobbit, set 60 years before the events in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien relates the story of the seemingly accidental finding of the Ring by another hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who took it to his home, Bag End. Story-externally, the tale related in The Hobbit was written before The Lord of the Rings, and it was only later that the author developed Bilbo's magic ring into the "One Ring." Neither Bilbo nor the wizard, Gandalf, are aware at this point that Bilbo's magic ring is the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron.
Synopsis
The Lord of the Rings takes up the story about 60 years after the end of The Hobbit. The story begins in the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's adoptive heir, came into possession of Bilbo's magic ring. Bilbo's old friend, Gandalf the Grey, who got Bilbo involved in the adventures in The Hobbit that led to the discovery of the Ring, discovered that the Ring was in fact the One Ring, the instrument of Sauron's power and the object for which the Dark Lord had been searching for most of the Third Age, and which corrupted others with desire for it and the power it held.
Sauron sent the sinister Ringwraiths, in the guise of riders in black, to the Shire, Frodo's native land, in search of the Ring. Frodo escaped, with the help of his loyal gardener Sam Gamgee and three close friends, Merry Brandybuck, Pippin Took, and Fatty Bolger. While Fatty acted as a decoy for the Ringwraiths, Frodo and the others set off to take the Ring to the Elven haven of Rivendell. They were aided by the enigmatic Tom Bombadil, who saved them from Old Man Willow and took them in for a few days of feasting, rest, and counsel. At the town of Bree, Frodo's party was joined by a man called "Strider", who was revealed, in a letter left by Gandalf at the local inn for Frodo, to be Aragorn, the heir to the kingships of Gondor and Arnor, two great realms founded by the Númenórean exiles. Aragorn lead the hobbits to Rivendell on Gandalf's request. However, Frodo was gravely wounded by the leader of the Ringwraiths, though he managed to recover under the care of the Half-elven lord Elrond.
In Rivendell, the hobbits also learned that Sauron's forces could only be resisted if Aragorn took up his inheritance and fulfilled an ancient prophecy by wielding the sword Andúril, which had been forged anew from the shards of Narsil, the sword that had cut the Ring from Sauron's finger in the Second Age. A high council, attended by representatives of the major races of Middle-earth; Elves, Dwarves, and Men, and presided over by Elrond, decided that the only course of action that could save Middle-earth was to destroy the Ring by taking it to Mordor and casting it into Mount Doom, where it was forged.
Frodo volunteered for the task, and a "Fellowship of the Ring" was formed to aid him — consisting of Frodo himself, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir of Gondor, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, and his three Hobbit companions. Their journey took them through the Mines of Moria, where they were being followed by the wretched creature Gollum, whom Bilbo had met in the Goblin-caves of the Misty Mountains years before. (The full tale of their meeting is told in The Hobbit.) Gollum had long possessed the Ring before it passed to Bilbo. Gandalf explained that Gollum belonged to a people "of hobbit-kind" before he came upon the Ring, which corrupted him. A slave to the Ring's evil power, Gollum desperately seeked to regain his "Precious." As they proceed through the Mines, Pippin unintentionally betrays their presence and the party was attacked by creatures of Sauron. Gandalf battled a giant subterranean demon, the Balrog, and fell into a deep chasm, apparently to his death. Escaping from Moria, the Fellowship, now led by Aragorn, went to the Elven realm of Lothlórien. Here, the Lady Galadriel showed Frodo and Sam visions of the past, present, and future. Frodo also saw the Eye of Sauron, a metaphysical expression of Sauron himself, and Galadriel was tempted by the Ring. By the end of the first volume, after the Fellowship has travelled along the great River Anduin, Frodo decided to continue the trek to Mordor on his own, largely due to the Ring's growing influence on Boromir; however, the faithful Sam insisted on going with him.
In the second volume, The Two Towers, a parallel story, told in the first book of the volume, detailed the exploits of the remaining members of the Fellowship who aided the country of Rohan in its war against the emerging evil of Saruman, leader of the Order of Wizards, who wanted the Ring for himself. At the start of the first book, the Fellowship was further scattered; Merry and Pippin were captured by Sauron and Saruman's orcs, Boromir was mortally wounded defending them, and Aragorn and the others went off in pursuit of their captors. The three met Gandalf, who had returned to Middle-earth as "Gandalf the White": they find out that he slew the Balrog of Moria, and although the battle also proved fatal to Gandalf, he was then sent back and "reborn" as a more imposing figure. At the end of the first book, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli help defeated Saruman's armies at the Battle of the Hornburg while Saruman himself was cornered by the tree-like Ents and Huorns, accompanied by Merry and Pippin, who had escaped from captivity.
The second book of the volume tells of Frodo and Sam's exploits on the way to Mount Doom. They managed to capture and "tame" Gollum, who then showed them a way to enter Mordor secretly (as opposed to the Black Gate), albeit through the dread realm of Minas Morgul. At the end of the volume, Gollum betrayed Frodo to the great spider, Shelob, and though he survived, he was later captured by Orcs. Meanwhile, Sauron launched an all-out military assault upon Middle-earth, with the Witch-king (leader of the Ringwraiths) leading a fell host from Minas Morgul into battle against Gondor, in the War of the Ring.
In the third volume, The Return of the King, the further adventures of Gandalf, Aragorn and company are related in the first book of the volume, while Frodo and Sam's are related in the second, as with The Two Towers. As told in the first book, the Fellowship assisted in the final battles against the armies of Sauron, including the siege of the tower-city of Minas Tirith in Gondor and the climactic life-or-death battle before the Black Gate of Mordor, where the alliance of Gondor and Rohan fought desperately against Sauron's armies in order to distract him from the Ring, hoping to gain time for Frodo to destroy it.
In the second book, Sam rescues Frodo from captivity. After much struggle, they finally reach Mount Doom itself, tailed by Gollum. However, the temptation of the Ring proved too great for Frodo and he claimed it for himself. However, Gollum struggled with him and managed to bite the Ring off. Crazed with triumph, Gollum slipped into the fires of the mountain, and the Ring was destroyed.
Finally, Sauron was defeated, and Aragorn was crowned king. However, all was not over, for Saruman managed to escape and despoil the Shire. At the end, Frodo remained wounded in body and spirit and went west accompanied by Bilbo over the Sea to Valinor, where he could find peace.
According to Tolkien's timeline, the events depicted in the story occurred between Bilbo's announcement of his T.A. September 22, 3001 birthday party, and Sam's re-arrival to Bag End on T.A. October 6, 3021. Most of the events portrayed in the story occur in 3018 and 3019, with Frodo heading out from Bag End on T.A. September 23 3018, and the destruction of the Ring six months later on T.A. March 25 3019.
Legolas
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GANDALF _LOTR
THE QUEEN-LOTR
