The Two Towers The Lord of the Rings Part Two [Paperback]

The middle novel in The Lord of the Rings—the greatest fantasy epic of all time—which began in The Fellowship of the Ring, and which reaches its magnificent climax in The Return of the King.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

The Fellowship is scattered. Some are bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some are contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam are left to take the accursed One Ring, ruler of all the Rings of Power, to be destroyed in Mordor, the dark realm where Sauron is supreme. Their guide is Gollum, deceitful and lust-filled, slave to the corruption of the Ring.

“An extraordinary work—pure excitement, unencumbered narrative, moral warmth, bare-faced rejoicing in beauty, but excitement most of all.”—The New York Times Book Review

John Ronald Reuel Tolkienwas born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After serving in World War I, he embarked upon a distinguished academic career and was recognized as one of the finest philologists in the world. He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. He is, however, beloved throughout the world as the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic works asThe HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings. He died on September 2, 1973, at the age of eighty-one.

THE DEPARTURE OF BOROMIR

Aragorn sped on up the hill. Every now and again he bent to the ground. Hobbits go light, and their footprints are not easy even for a Ranger to read, but not far from the top a spring crossed the path, and in the wet earth he saw what he was seeking.

‘I read the signs aright,’ he said to himself. ‘Frodo ran to the hill-top. I wonder what he saw there? But hel3³