The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
Fantasy Young adultEssaysContemporary fiction
The final volume: a siege, a long dark road, and two small people carrying the world's worst object toward the one place it can end. A long, dark journey toward a distant fire, carried by steady friendship and occasional glimpses of beauty.
Feels like hope, awe and melancholy. About adventure, friendship and power.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy high fantasy with grave stakes, old-fashioned storytelling, and companions who matter more than battles. It is the third volume and depends on the first two, while the elevated, sometimes archaic prose and long grim stretches ask for patience.
Why read it
Read it for the payoff of a long journey: courage in small hands, friendship under pressure, and a hard-won glimpse of light.
A page from the book
What a single star can do to someone at the end of their strength.
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. J.R.R. Tolkien.Tolkien finished the book in 1949, but his publisher split it into three volumes in 1954–55, partly because of postwar paper rationing and the cost of one enormous book.
Books that feel like this
More by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1934
A quiet Hobbit's routine world is shattered when an unexpected visitor introduces him to a quest of impossible stakes.
The Fellowship of the Ring
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954
A quiet hobbit inherits a ring that is not his to keep, and leaves the Shire with friends who do not yet know the road.
The Silmarillion
J. R. R. Tolkien, 1977
The creation myth and lost legends of Middle-earth: cosmic music, doomed oaths, and the wars that made Frodo's world.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Return of the King for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy high fantasy with grave stakes, old-fashioned storytelling, and companions who matter more than battles. It is the third volume and depends on the first two, while the elevated, sometimes archaic prose and long grim stretches ask for patience.
- What is The Return of the King like?
- A long, dark journey toward a distant fire, carried by steady friendship and occasional glimpses of beauty. Feels like hope, awe and melancholy. About adventure, friendship and power.
- What should I read after The Return of the King?
- If you liked The Return of the King, try The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin), The Gunslinger (Stephen King) and The Sea of Monsters (Rick Riordan).
A taste of the feed
She doesn't hate him for being powerful. She hates him for being honest.
This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.
The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin
What it sounds like to turn aiming a gun into a prayer.
I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.
The Gunslinger · Stephen King
The original story is a lot less inspiring than the version you were told.
The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that’s not important.“ ”It was probably important to her.
The Sea of Monsters · Rick Riordan
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