Three-volume boxed set edition lavishly illustrated in full color by Alan Lee

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

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 own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth still it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.

From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.

On his eleventy-first birthday, Bilbo dissapeared bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring, and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.

The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard, the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

"There are very few works of genius in recent literature. This is one." Michael Straight, The Nation

"A triumphant close...a grand piece of work, grand in both conception and execution. An astonishing imaginative tour de force." Daily Telegraph

"One of the great fairy-tale quests in modern literature." Time

"A remarkable book." Newsweek

"Tolkien?s stories take place against a background of measureless depth....That background is ever-present in the creator?s mind and it gives Frodo and company a three-dimensional reality that is seldom found in this kind of writing." The Washington Post

"An extraordinary work — pure excitement." The New York Times

"The great tale of wonder, like the great novel, is not a preoccupation of children....[T]he adult mind has, if anything, greater need of fantasy than that of a child....In The Lord of the Rings, a whole Secondary World is created and successfully sustained through three large volumes. These are sure to remain Tolkien's life work, and are certainly destined to outlast our time." Loren Eisley, New York Herald Tribune Book Week

The classic edition illustrated by Alan Lee is now updated with beautiful, full-color paintings.

The Return of the King is the third part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings.

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by the Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman.

Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed toward Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by Smeagol — Gollum, still obsessed by his "preciouss." After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive — in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892. After serving in the First World War, he embarked upon a distinguished career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. He is the renowned creator of Middle-earth and author of the great modern classic, The Hobbit, the prelude to his epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Other works by J.R.R. Tolkien include The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973 at the age of 81.