The Fellowship of the Ring

The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien; it is followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Tolkien called "The Shadow of the Past" the "crucial chapter" as it changes the tone of the book, and lets both the protagonist Frodo and the reader know that there will be a quest to destroy the One Ring.