#21 in Classics
The Fellowship of the Ring
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Lord of the Rings” begins at a walking pace: songs, long descriptions of landscape and more than one detour come before the quest gathers speed, and impatient readers do complain. Those same pages are what make Middle-earth feel lived in, and the loyalty between Frodo and Sam gives the journey its warmth. It rewards rereading and suits anyone who likes to settle into a world. The story does not end with this volume.
Worth knowing Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as one novel; Allen & Unwin split it into three volumes to keep the cost down, and this first one appeared in July 1954. The prologue, Concerning Hobbits, and the opening chapters move slowly, and the pace picks up after Rivendell. Peter Jackson’s 2001 film leaves out Tom Bombadil and shrinks the seventeen years between Bilbo’s party and Frodo’s departure.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The opening novel of The Lord of the Rings—the greatest fantasy epic of all time—which continues in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read The dark, fearsome Ringwraiths are searching for a Hobbit. Frodo Baggins knows that they are seeking him and the Ring he bears—the Ring of Power that will enable evil Sauron to destroy all that is good in Middle-earth. Now it is up to Frodo and his faithful servant, Sam, with a small band of companions, to carry the Ring to the one place it can be destroyed: Mount Doom, in the very center of Sauron’s realm.
Reading order · The Lord of the Rings
Full order & progress →- The Fellowship of the RingThis book
8.88.8 / 10 - The Two Towers
8.98.9 / 10 - The Return of the King
9.19.1 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.8 across 5,853 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 98% of the weight and the score stays at 8.8 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.7 | 399 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 8.8 | 5.5K | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Fellowship of the Ring?
It has 496 pages — shorter than 59% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 8.1 and 9.1, closest to this book.
