I'd say that it is ⅓ of a huge book, but that is how I experienced it. My mum had the combined version and that is what I read 3 or 4 times. The first time I couldn't keep straight on to the next bit was at the cinema.

YTA It was published not long after WW2 and paper was a hot commodity. That and the fact the only book at the time that long was the bible, and the risk the publisher was taking with his, at the time, ground breaking fantasy novel, it was the only way to get it published by splitting it into multiple books. Most fantasy trilogies/anthologies are not standalone books. That's a weird take.

How can a book stand on its own if part of the story will continue in a different book? I don't understand

So, it’s a 6 part book published into 3 books. Take it as finding longer books split into parts for easier travel. Or those people who rip books into smaller parts for the same reason. You can’t really separate them. I don’t think it is as big a deal as you are making it, it was a bit of an adjustment when I read them all for the first time this year.

You'd have a point if it was any other book series than the Lord of the Rings. How you didn't know it, of all works, was one long story in three parts at this point of society kind of... I don't even know how to describe it.

You can purchase it as it was originally intended to be published. As the Redbook of Westmarch

If a book series is written as a trilogy, you'd be correct. Most trilogies suffer from a "1 + 2" problem where the first book holds up but book two and three are two halves of a continued story. Its one of my pet peeves. But LotR was written to be one singular book. The publisher decided to trilogize it. So I give Tolkien a pass. He intended for you to read it in one go.

If you didnt know it's the first third of a book that's on you. It not like it's one of the best selling, best known, best regarded pieces of literature in history. If you don't like it, that's fine, but it's bizarre to act like it or it's context was hiding somewhere.

And this is why I think the publishers shouldn’t have given each volume its own title, rather they should have called it “The Lord of the Rings, being presented in Parts One, Two and Three,” because these are only thirds of a single book. Quite frankly, I don’t really see the advantage of three different titles.

I disagree, what you're talking about is more like interconnected standalones. It is very normal, though not universal, for book series to require all the books to be read in order to complete the story and reach a conclusion. Maybe it's more common in fantasy and sci-fi, but it's very normal. The most recent series I read like this was in N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. You absolutely need to read all three books (and they're great). 🧵