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The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by philologist J.R.R Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit (1937), but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II. Although generally known to readers as a trilogy, Tolkien initially intended it as one volume of a two volume set, with the other volume to be The Silmarillion; however, the publisher was not interested in the second volume and in 1954-5 printed The Lord of the Rings as...