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The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy saga by British author J. R. R. Tolkien, his magnum opus and a sequel to his well-received earlier work, The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings was originally published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955. Three film adaptations have been made of the story told by the books: the first, by animator Ralph Bakshi was released in 1978 (as part one of what was intended to be a two-part adaptation of the story); the second, a 1980 television special; and the third, director Peter Jackson's epic film trilogy, released in three installments in 2001, 2002, and 2003 which starred Elijah Wood as the main character of Frodo.

For more information regarding the fictional universe in which the story takes place, including lists of characters and locations, see Middle-earth (the name Tolkien bestowed upon his world).

The titular character of the Lord of the Rings is the Dark Lord Sauron, ruler of the land of Mordor. The evil power of the work, Sauron created the One Ring to control nineteen other Rings of Power, and was thus the "Lord of the Rings." Sauron, in turn, was the servant of an earlier Dark Lord, Morgoth (Melkor), who is prominent in Tolkien's The Silmarillion, an earlier history of Middle-Earth.