The Lord of the Rings books III and IV, and as such the eponymous towers could be either Orthanc and Barad-dûr, or Minas Tirith and Barad-dûr, or Orthanc and Cirith Ungol. Tolkien was initially opposed to titles being given to each two-book volume, preferring instead the use of book titles: e.g. "The Lord of the Rings": Vol. 1, "The Ring Sets Out" and "The Ring Goes South"; Vol. 2, "The Treason of Isengard" and "The Ring Goes East"; Vol. 3, "The War of the Ring" and "The End of the Third Age". However these individual book titles were later scrapped, and after pressure from his
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion notes on the book and jacket design of the first editions of 1954-55. The book includes some previously unpublished material by Tolkien. It also reprints part of a 1951 letter in which Tolkien explicates, at some length, his conception and vision of "The Lord of the Rings". Reprinted for the first time since 1980, and corrected and expanded, is Tolkien's "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings" (previously referred to as "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings"), an index of persons, places, and things designed to aid the translator in rendering Tolkien's work into foreign languages.