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: The Return of the King King" has helped "The Lord of the Rings" franchise to become the highest-grossing motion picture trilogy worldwide of all time with $2,917,506,956, beating other notable ones such as the "Star Wars" trilogies, and surviving from being out-grossed by subsequent trilogies like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Harry Potter", despite ticket price inflation. These figures do not include income from DVD sales, TV rights, etc. It has been estimated that the gross income from non-box office sales and merchandise has been at least equal to the box office for all three films. If this is so, the total gross income for