Rings have been made for radio, theatre, and film. It was named Britain's best-loved novel of all time in the BBC's 2003 poll The Big Read. Plot The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King Frame story Tolkien presents The Lord of the Rings within a fictional frame story where he is not the original author, but merely the translator of part of an ancient document, the Red Book of Westmarch. That book is modelled on the real Red Book of Hergest, which similarly presents an older mythology. Various details of the frame story appear in the Prologue, its "Note on Shire Records", and in the Appendices, notably Appendix F. In this frame story, the Red Book is the purported source of Tolkien's other works relating to Middle-earth: The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Concept and creation Background Although a major work in itself, The Lord of the Rings was only the last movement of a much older set of narratives Tolkien had worked on since 1917 encompassing The Silmarillion, in a process he described as mythopoeia. The Lord of the Rings started as a sequel to Tolkien's work The Hobbit, published in 1937. The popularity of The Hobbit had led George Allen & Unwin, the publishers, to request a sequel. Tolkien warned them that he wrote quite slowly, and responded with several stories he had already developed. Having rejected his contemporary drafts for The Silmarillion, putting Roverandom on hold, and accepting Farmer Giles of Ham, Allen & Unwin continued to ask for more stories about hobbits. Writing Persuaded by his publishers, he started "a new Hobbit" in December 1937. After several false starts, the story of the One Ring emerged. The idea for the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party") arrived fully formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, the significance of the Ring, and the title The Lord of the Rings did not come until the spring of 1938. Originally, he planned to write a story in which Bilbo had used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more; however, he remembered the Ring and its powers and thought that would be a better focus for the new work. As the story progressed, he brought in elements from The Silmarillion mythology. Writing was slow, because Tolkien had a full-time academic position, marked exams to bring