The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by English academic 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 created during World War II. It was originally published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955. It has since been reprinted numerous times and translated into at least 38 languages, becoming one of the most popular works in 20th-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 science but after the fall of his version of Atlantis, which he calls Númenor. Tolkien gave this setting a modern English name, Middle-earth, derived from the Old English Middangeard, the realm where humans live in Norse and related Germanic mythologies. The story concerns peoples such as Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Wizards, and Orcs 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.

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 partly failed because the Elves became aware of him and took off their Rings. Sauron then launched a war during which he captured sixteen of the Rings of Power and distributed these 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; this brought more conflict between them and other races. The Men who possessed the Nine were slowly corrupted over time and eventually became the undead Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, Sauron's most feared servants. Sauron failed to capture the remaining Three, and so they remained in the possession of the Elves (Celebrimbor, leader of the Elven-smiths, had forged them independently of Sauron). The war ended as the Men of the great island-nation of Númenor helped the besieged Elves, and Sauron's forces retreated.