It was on this date in 1954 that The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings, was published in the UK. Seventy-two years later, Tolkien’s masterpiece continues to captivate readers, inspire filmmakers, and shape almost every fantasy story that has followed.

You may be surprised to discover that at the time of its publication the book was expected to be a dud and a money loser for the publisher. The Fellowship’s first print run was actually quite small. In fact, the entire first printing was just 4,550 books. What began as a modest investment in a “fairy story” for adults went on to become one of the best-selling novels ever written.

The Ring Cycle grew from Tolkien’s desire to craft a mythology rooted in the traditions he loved: Northern European legends, medieval literature, and ancient heroic tales. Rather than inventing a setting to serve a story, Tolkien often worked the other way around. The world came first, and the stories emerged from it.

Originally, Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings not as a trilogy at all, but as a single novel in six books. It was divided into three volumes for practical reasons.  According to the Tolkien Estate , The Fellowship of the Ring arrived first on July 29, 1954, followed by The Two Towers on  November 11, 1954 and The Return of the King on October 20, 1955, the final volume was delayed while Tolkien worked on its appendices, maps, and index.