Even though The Lord of the Rings is usually referred to as a trilogy (as there are three books and three movies), its actual intention when published was a little different. Lord of the Rings is actually technically one novel split into three books, with each of those books also being split into two parts within the pages as well. Tolkien originally wanted to publish the whole thing as one novel, but it was split into three to save on paper costs (and this was probably lucky for fans as well, as it makes the process of reading the series more manageable).