Which are the Two Towers?

Book III:
The story in about the battle at Helm's Deep and destroying Orthanc.

Book IV:
The story is about Frodo, Sam, Smeagol, Cirith Ungol...

There are two different stories!

Letter #143

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I am sending now Book III, first half of Vol. II, carefully corrected. Book IV is nearly done and shall follow on Monday.
I have also revised Vol. III and can let you have the MS. of that (as far as the end of the story) as soon as you wish. The matter for the extra 50 pages I shall not be able to do just yet.

I am not at all happy about the title 'the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading. There is, of course, actually no real connecting link between Books III and IV, when cut off and presented separately as a volume.

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Tolkien decided to publish (allow to be published) Orthanc and Minas Morgul in The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien also decided to ultimately submit (for publication) a rendering of Orthanc and Minas Morgul for the cover of The Two Towers.

Posting information from Tolkien's letters might be interesting here, but Tolkien-approved published text is another matter in my opinion. Tolkien's final rendering of the cover became somewhat 'behind the scenes' in itself, as things worked out (though this cover has since been published), but in any case Tolkien submitted the illustration for publication at the time -- he did not submit a drawing of Cirith Ungol for example -- nor did he reject the text intended to appear at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and refer his publishers to a letter he had once written stating that he was unhappy with the title (or whatever).

Tolkien also vacillated about Celeborn for example. Unpublished accounts may be interesting (and are), but they shouldn't necessarily muddle up the fact that Tolkien published that Celeborn was one of the Sindar (as opposed to a Teler of Aman as described in a letter).



Galin

maybe the two towers are Sam and Frodo...haha just a thought

Book III and Vook IV are quite different. The Title 'The Two Towers' is a title that tries to unite the two books.

And here are the other 'possible' titles:
The Lord of the Rings. I The Return of the Shadow.
" " " " " II The Shadow Lengthens.
" " " " " III The Return of the King.

Would it not do if the 'book-titles' were used: e.g. The Lord of the Rings: Vol. I The Ring Sets out and The Ring Goes South; Vol. II The Treason of Isengard, and The Ring goes East; Vol. III The War of the Ring, and The End of the Third Age'?

Do you see 'The Two Towers'? No .

And you say 'Tolkien decided to publish (allow to be published) Orthanc and Minas Morgul in The Lord of the Rings.'
I think that's enough Maybe the publishers wanted the answer of the question; Tolkien gave them the answer but he didn't want.

Btw, Galin, where are you from? My real name is Galin and I am from Bulgaria

I always thought the two towers were Orthanc and Minas Morgul. In my Fellowship of the Ring book, at the end, it says something like "The next book, The Two Towers, focuses on Orthanc, where Saruman is, and Minas Morgul, home to the secret passage into Mordor". Obviously, that's not the correct wording but you get the idea of what I'm talking about.

Galin said:

A Tolkien approved quote, and published in The Lord of the Rings...


"Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. The second part is called THE TWO TOWERS, since the events recounted in it are dominated by ORTHANC, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of MINAS MORGUL, that guards the secret entrance to Mordor; it tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now sundered fellowship, until the coming of the great darkness."


And already posted too, but perhaps not yet in this colour

Galin

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I posted that actually, and I still stand by it, even though Ingwe's quote is quite convincing. But the thing is, that at the time when Tolkien wrote that letter, he was still uunnsure of that, but in the quote that I and Galin gave, Tolkien seemed sure of that fact.

ingolmo said:

But the thing is, that at the time when Tolkien wrote that letter, he was still uunnsure of that, but in the quote that I and Galin gave, Tolkien seemed sure of that fact.

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Galin and you? That means me and you And the other Galin and you as well.
About the thread: some time ago I was checking the Letters. As far as I remember there was something about the Two Towers. I wrote that paragraph on paper. I'll find it and I'll post here

from Letter #140 to Rayner Unwin 17 August 1953

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'...The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and 4; and can be left ambiguous – it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dûr, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol.1 On reflection I prefer for Vol. III The War of the Ring, since it gets in the Ring again; and also is more non-committal, and gives less hint about the turn of the story : the chapter titles have been chosen also to give away as little as possible in advance. But I am not set in my choice.'

from Letter #143 to Raynor Unwin 22 January 1954... I post the letter in its entirety, 'I am not at all happy about the title 'the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading. There is, of course, actually no real connecting link between Books III and IV, when cut off and presented separately as a volume.'

Here follows a footnote to Letter #140 from The Letters. I'm not sure whether the commentary is from Humphrey Carpenter (Editor) or Christopher Tolkien (Contributor).

Footnote to Letter #140, [140] '1. In a subsequent letter to Rayner Unwin (no. 143), Tolkien is more definite that the Two Towers are 'Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol'. On the other hand, in his original design for the jacket of The Two Towers (see no. 151) the Towers are certainly Orthanc and Minas Morgul. Orthanc is shown as a black tower, three-homed (as seen in Pictures no. 27), and with the sign of the White Hand beside it; Minas Morgul is a white tower, with a thin waning moon above it, in reference to its original name. Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon (The Fellowship of the Ring p. 257). Between the two towers a Nazgûl flies.'

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Grond posted this, in this thread, back in 2002.

In any case, according to Wayne Hammond, Tolkien ultimately approved the explanation (for publication) about the towers that appears in The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien also submitted his final design for the cover of The Two Towers (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995 by Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull). This drawing has now also been published as a cover for The Two Towers and depicts the same two towers as described in The Fellowship.

Galin

Galin said:

Grond posted this, in this thread, back in 2002.

In any case, according to Wayne Hammond, Tolkien ultimately approved the explanation (for publication) about the towers that appears in The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien also submitted his final design for the cover of The Two Towers (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995 by Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull). This drawing has now also been published as a cover for The Two Towers and depicts the same two towers as described in The Fellowship.

Galin

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Holy crapola! It was that long ago?? Seems like it was only yesteday.

BTW, I thought this issue was settled long ago. Did someone not read the entire thread?? Naughty! Naughty!

Cheers,

grond