The Lord of The Rings Books in Order – The Lord of The Rings Series is one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time by the English writer JRR Tolkein. It originally began as a sequel to the 1937 children’s tale The Hobbit.
It was written in parts during the time of World War II. You can easily imagine how good this novel is because it is the second best-selling novel in history and has sold over 150 million copies worldwide.
Lord of The Rings Books story begins with the main exponent of history, Lord Sauron, who ruled over all the other rings of different powers and formed a ring with the power to rule the world.
A beautiful Shire place, starting from the Land of the Hobbits, the story stretches northwest to Middle Earth and encompasses the help of interesting characters like Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Sam, Meridock, Pippin, Boromir, Jimly, Legolas, and the great magician. Gandalf, etc.
The Lord of The Rings Books/Series in Order
Here’s what order to read the books in:
- The Hobbit (1937)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
- The Two Towers (1954)
- The Return of the King (1955)
- The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)
- The Silmarillion (1977)
- The Children of Húrin (2007)
- Any other Middle-earth stories attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien
The Lord of The Rings Characters
Bilbo: Frodo’s uncle, who first had the ring. Bilbo is a happy, fortunate and fickle pastime that spent his entire life in a poet. He never felt that his ring was a source of great power, although heavily influenced by it and he began to go crazy as he grew older.
Gandalf – A great wizard who keeps the entire trilogy going. Gandalf first learned of Ring’s powers and dangers and kept Bilbo and Frodo from being invisible. Gandalf demonstrates remarkable courage and intelligence. His fight with Saruman in Moriya is one of the best parts of the novel. He also changed from gray to white wizard and surprised everyone. He is often fickle but concerned about the future of Middle-earth.
Frodo: The main protagonist of the series. He is the ring bearer. A young fondant was chosen to have the ring to return to Mordor. He is always weak to the overwhelming temptation to offer the ring to his bear.
When it comes to taking down the ring at Mount Doom, he refuses to do so and stands in the way of returning the ring. We feel sorry for him because in many scenes he has failed to emerge as a true hero. Although the ring is destroyed in the end, we cannot attribute it in any way.
Saruman: A wizard who was on Sauron’s side. He is an old friend of Gandalf, although later, coveted for power and fearing Sauron, he joins the Dark Army. He also tried to stop Gandalf from helping Ring’s fellowship. Through his powers, he creates endless Uruk-nai (demons) to cover Middle-earth with his terror.
Golam: Here comes the most entertaining character in the series. A miserable swamp to retrieve the crazy ring. Before getting the ring, he was an innocent fan named Smeagle, but impressed by the ring’s evil he turned into the hideous, slim, and creepy creature ‘Golam’. That could be an example of what would have happened if Frodo had kept the ring longer. The only motto is to give you back the ring by hook or by crook.
Sam: He is Frodo’s best friend. She takes care of Frodo through the story and helps him wear the ring. It is the best example of a loyal partner. He is a pure soul and always immune to the call of the ring. As Frodo continues to suffer from the greed of the ring, Sam is the one who supports him and keeps him on his feet against the brutal ride.
Also Read –
Aragorn: He is the rightful king of Gondor. He keeps his identity a secret from the beginning and remains a ranger. Emerge as a pure heart that supports the noble cause of destroying the ring to save Middle-earth. You don’t want to keep your ring and use its power to regain your throne. It also gives the story a romantic angle to his love affair with the elf princess Arwen. At the end of the novel, he was declared king of Gondar.
Legolas: a young elf who was part of the brotherhood of Ring. He has some notable skills with the bow and arrow. A very loyal and intelligent character who serves the purpose of the fellowship to the end.
Lord of The Rings Books in Order of Publication
| Book Name | Publication Year | Check at Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Hobbit | -1937 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Fellowship of the Ring | -1954 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Two Towers | -1954 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Return of the King | -1955 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Adventures of Tom Bombadil | -1962 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Silmarillion | -1977 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
| The Children of Húrin | -2007 | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Excerpt From “The Tale of the Children of Húrin“
There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World.
In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Túrin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves.
Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Húrin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire.
Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in the direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Túrin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled.
The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed; but long afterward, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he wrote it anew and greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive and character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth.
But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book, Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after a long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
This revised and expanded edition of Tolkien’s own Hobbit-inspired poetry includes previously unpublished poems and notes, and is beautifully illustrated by ‘Narnia’ artist Pauline Baynes.
