Lord of the Rings consists of three books:

The Fellowship of the Ring

,

The Two Towers

,

and The Return of the King.

(later get movie poster)

The main character is Frodo

He is a hobbit who is appointed the job of taking the ring of power from Rivendell to Mount Doom in Mordor to destroy it.

Sam

He is Frodo's gardener who helps him through his perils along the way.

Merry and Pippin

Two hobbits who mainly are annoying and along with Gimli are the comic relief of the story. They are involved with the siege of Isengard and the Pippin becomes a Gondor warrior and Merry becomes a Rider of Rohan.

Aragorn

Aragorn (Strider) is the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor. He is also a ranger who helps protecting the kingdoms of men and guides Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin to Rivendell.

Gandalf

Gandalf is a wizard who tells Frodo of the danger of the ring if Sauron gets it and protect Minas Tirith during the battle of Plennor Fields.

Sauron

Sauron is the forger of the ring and the major bad guy (villian for more intelligent people) of the story. If he gets the rings he'll be able to wipe out all the lands with sick and darkness.

Saruman

Saruman is a wizard who abandonned reason for madness according to Gandalf. He lives at Isengard and wants to help Sauron.

Gollum

Gollum is a demented river folk who had the ring long enough to become attached and live longer. He guides Frodo and Sam to Mordor. ( HE'S FREEKY DEEKY)

Those are all the main characters but not all of them. If I had to tell you about each one I would have to work almost as much as Toilken. Toilken not only wrote the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, but created several languages, cultures for each race, about a hundred pages of apendices, and several books for background info.