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 The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005) is a nonfiction book written by scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It is an annotated reference to J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Hammond and Scull proceed chapter-by-chapter from the original foreword through to the end of "The Lord of the Rings". Appendices, examining the evolution of the text, changes, inconsistencies, and errors, often using comments from Tolkien's own notes and letters. Other sections cover the numerous maps of Middle-earth, chronologies of the story and its writing, and