The History of The Lord of the Rings "The Lord of the Rings". J. R. R. Tolkien conceived the latter as a single volume comprising six "books" plus extensive appendices, but the original publisher split the work into three, publishing two books per volume with the appendices included in the third. The titles proposed by Tolkien for the six books were: Book I, "The First Journey" or "The Ring Sets Out"; Book II, "The Journey of the Nine Companions" or "The Ring Goes South"; Book III, "The Treason of Isengard"; Book IV, "The Journey of the Ring-Bearers" or "The Ring Goes East"; Book V, "The War of the
The Lord of the Rings May 2007. The enormous popularity of Tolkien's work expanded the demand for fantasy fiction. Largely thanks to "The Lord of the Rings," the genre flowered throughout the 1960s, and enjoys popularity to the present day. The opus has spawned many imitators, such as "The Sword of Shannara", which Lin Carter called "the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read". "Dungeons & Dragons", which popularized the role-playing game (RPG) genre in the 1970s, features many races found in "The Lord of the Rings," most notably halflings (another term for hobbits), elves (who are distinct from