Building on the story begun in The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring this is the second part of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, featuring a striking black cover based on Tolkien's own design, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth.

Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in the battle with an evil spirit in the Mines of Moria; and at the Falls of Rauros, Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape the rest of the company were attacked by Orcs.

Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin - alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.

"Tolkien's invention of strange peoples, curious incidents, miraculous doings, is poured out in this second volume of his trilogy as exuberantly and convincingly in a dreamlike way, as ever. As the story goes on the world of the Ring grows more vast and mysterious and crowded with curious figures, horrible, delightful or comic. The story itself is superb." - The Observer

"Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century." - Sunday Telegraph

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on the 3rd January, 1892 at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, but at the age of four he and his brother were taken back to England by their mother. After his father’s death the family moved to Sarehole, on the south-eastern edge of Birmingham. Tolkien spent a happy childhood in the countryside and his sensibility to the rural landscape can clearly be seen in his writing and his pictures.

His mother died when he was only twelve and both he and his brother were made wards of the local priest and sent to King Edward’s School, Birmingham, where Tolkien shone in his classical work. After completing a First in English at Oxford, Tolkien married Edith Bratt. He was also commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought in the battle of the Somme. After the war, he obtained a post on the ‘New English Dictionary’ and began to write the mythological and legendary cycle which he originally called ‘The Book of Lost Tales’ but which eventually became known as ‘The Silmarillion’.

In 1920 Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds which was the beginning of a distinguished academic career culminating with his election as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. Meanwhile Tolkien wrote for his children and told them the story of ‘The Hobbit’. It was his publisher, Stanley Unwin, who asked for a sequel to ‘The Hobbit’ and gradually Tolkien wrote ‘The Lord of the Rings’, a huge story that took twelve years to complete and which was not published until Tolkien was approaching retirement. After retirement Tolkien and his wife lived near Oxford, but then moved to Bournemouth. Tolkien returned to Oxford after his wife’s death in 1971. He died on 2 September 1973 leaving ‘The Silmarillion’ to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher.