The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of the three volumes that comprise The Lord of the Rings novel. Set in a mythical universe of Middle-earth, this book continues in the same tone as The Hobbit. The Dark Lord, Sauron, is the Lord of the Rings, who is on a mission to reclaim the One Ring and use it to enslave all of Middle-earth.The Fellowship Of The Ring commences with a birthday party in Hobbiton. Bilbo Baggins, the current possessor of the Ring, turns 111 and bequeaths the ring to his cousin, Frodo Baggins. Several years pass and the wizard Gandalf routinely visits Frodo in Bag End. One spring night, he tells Frodo the truth about the Ring and the story behind it. He informs him that Sauron has risen again and is in search of the Ring. Upon learning this, Frodo departs from the Shire alongside three Hobbit friends: Sam, Merry and Pippin.Along the way, the four of them are faced with several obstacles and distractions, including Ringwraiths, who are the servants of Sauron, a malevolent willow tree and an evil tomb ghost. The group befriends wandering Elves on the way and set upon their path across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, intending to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lords plan.The Fellowship of the Ring was published as Film tie-in edition by HarperCollins in 2012 and is available in paperback.Key Features: This book was first published in 1954 in the United Kingdom. This novel is succeeded by The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE, FRSL (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973), known by his pen name J. R. R. Tolkien, was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high-fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.