The Lord of the Rings the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, not only the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but also the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men, Aragorn, a Ranger of the North, and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas Greenleaf, an Elven
Translations of The Lord of the Rings 38 (or 39) languages for which translations of ""The Hobbit" and/or "The Lord of the Rings"" exist: For some of these languages, there is a translation of "The Hobbit", but not of "The Lord of the Rings". For some languages, there is more than one translation of "The Lord of the Rings". These notably include Russian, besides Swedish, Norwegian, German, Polish and Slovenian. In addition to languages mentioned above, there are published translations of the Hobbit into Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Esperanto, Faroese, Georgian, Irish, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, and Persian. Comparatively few translations appeared during Tolkien's lifetime: when Tolkien died on