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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. |
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| Backstory: |
The backstory is revealed as the book
progresses, and also elaborated in
the Appendices and in The Silmarillion,
published after Tolkien's death. The
backstory 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 possessed of great supernatural
powers, later 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 as one of the Valar, the angelic
Powers of the world). During the Second
Age, Sauron schemed to gain dominion
over Middle-earth. In the guise of
"Annatar" or Lord of Gifts,
he aided the Elven-smiths of Eregion
in the forging of magical rings which
conferred various powers and effects
on their wearers. The most important
of these were the nineteen Rings of
Power or Great Rings.
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. |
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Books:
The Lord of the Rings was started
as a sequel to The Hobbit, a fantasy story
that Tolkien had written for, and read to,
his children, which was published in 1937.
The popularity of The Hobbit led to demands
from his publishers for more stories about
Hobbits and goblins, and so that same year,
at the age of 45, Tolkien began writing
the story that would become The Lord of
the Rings. The story would not be finished
until 12 years later, in 1949, and it would
not be fully published until 1955, by which
time Tolkien was 63 years old.
Tolkien did not originally
intend to write a sequel to The Hobbit,
and instead wrote several other children's
tales, including Roverandom. As his main
work, Tolkien began to outline the history
of Arda, telling tales of the Silmarils,
and many other stories of how the races
and situations that we read about in the
Lord of the Rings came to be. Tolkien died
before he could complete and put together
this work, today known as The Silmarillion,
but his son Christopher Tolkien edited his
father's work, filled in gaps, and published
it in 1977. Some Tolkien biographers regard
The Silmarillion as the true "work
of his heart", as it provides the historical
and linguistic context for the more popular
work and for his constructed languages,
and occupied the greater part of Tolkien's
time. As a result The Lord of the Rings
ended up as the last movement of Tolkien's
legendarium and in his own opinion "much
larger, and I hope also in proportion the
best, of the entire cycle." |
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