In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.

When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.

The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

This edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and an extensive index.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), beloved throughout the world as the creator of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. His chief interest was the linguistic aspects of the early English written tradition, but while he studied classic works of the past, he was creating a set of his own.

Praise for The Lord of the Rings

"An extraordinary work -- pure excitement." -- New York Times Book Review

"One of the great fairy-tale quests in modern literature." -- Time

"A remarkable book." -- Newsweek

"One of the very few works of genius in recent literature." -- New Republic

"A work of immense narrative power that can sweep the reader up and hold him enthralled for days and weeks." -- The Nation

"Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron." -- C. S. Lewis

"The first thing one asks of an adventure story is that the adventure should be various and exciting . . . Tolkien's invention is unflagging." -- W. H. Auden

"J.R.R. Tolkien's epic trilogy remains the ultimate quest, the ultimate battle between good and evil, the ultimate chronicle of stewardship of the earth. Endlessly imitated, it never has been surpassed." -- Kansas City Star

"A masterful story . . . an epic in its own way . . . with elements of high adventure, suspense, mystery, poetry, and fantasy." -- Boston Sunday Herald