 These are the words of Tolkien himself, the author of the work, speaking about the Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings is, of course, a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, and the Lord of the Rings was originally intended to be a follow-up to the Hobbit, but as we all know now that in the process of the early stages of the writing, it grew up, it grew out, it grew wild, it became big, it became grown up, and Tolkien became convinced that the work would never be published in his own lifetime because it didn't fit any genre at all of anything that had come before it. It was long and that's why the publisher, when they did eventually publish it, decided to publish it in three volumes. It's a big mistake to call the Lord of the Rings a trilogy. Trilogy implies three works that are connected. The Lord of the Rings is one work.