The Return of the King is the third and final volume of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. The story begins in the kingdom of Gondor, soon to be attacked by the Dark Lord Sauron.
Tolkien conceived of The Lord of the Rings as a single volume comprising six “books” plus extensive appendices. The original publisher split the work into three volumes, publishing the fifth and sixth books with the appendices into the final volume with the title The Return of the King. Tolkien felt the chosen title revealed too much of the story and indicated he preferred The War of the Ring as a title.
The proposed title for Book V was The War of the Ring; Book VI was to be The End of the Third Age. These titles were used in the Millennium edition.
The Return of the King was in the end published as the third and final volume of The Lord of the Rings on October 20, 1955, in the United Kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment