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The Lord of
The Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
tells of the struggle between good and evil in a land called Middle-Earth
and of the Great War of the Ring.
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths,
and Sauron the Dark Lord,
forged the One Ring, filling it with his power so that he could
rule all others. But the One Ring
was taken from him by Isildur and though he sought it throughout
Middle-Earth
it remained lost
to him. After many ages, it fell by chance into the hands of a
Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.
(See The
Hobbit for details.)
The Lord of the Rings was first published in three volumes between
1954 and 1955. Tolkien
began working on the Lord of the Rings in 1936 just prior to the
publication of The
Hobbit. However he had been writing stories on Middle-Earth
since 1917 which eventually became the Book
of Lost Tales which was not published until after his death.
The
Hobbit published in 1937 tells of a great quest by Bilbo Baggins
a Hobbit of the Shire,
Gandalf the Grey a Wizard, and thirteen dwarves to find treasure,
the dwarf-hoards of the Kings under the Mountain, beneath Erebor
in Dale, far off in the East. The quest was successful, and the
Dragon that guarded the hoard was destroyed. During an attack
by Orcs in a high pass of the
Misty Mountains, Bilbo became lost for a while in the black orc-mines
deep under the mountains, and there, as he groped in vain in the
dark, he finds a Ring of power that belonged to creature
called Gollum. (See the The
Hobbit for details)
The
Silmarillion tells the story of the First Age in Tolkien's
world, the ancient drama that the characters in the Lord of the
Rings often refer to. Elrond and Galadriel feature.
J.R.R
Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892. After
serving in The First World war he emberked on a distinguished
academic career and was regarded as on of the finest philologists
in the world. He is however best know as the creator of Middle-Earth
and author of such classic works as The
Hobbit,
The Lord of the Rings and The
Silmarillion. He died in 1973 aged 81.
(See
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography)
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