Editing The Two Towers (section)

== Reception ==

<!--reviews from the 1950s that apply specifically TO THIS VOLUME
-->{{further|Literary reception of The Lord of the Rings}}

Donald Barr in ''[[The New York Times]]'' gave the book a positive review, calling it "an extraordinary work – pure excitement, unencumbered narrative, moral warmth, barefaced rejoicing in beauty, but excitement most of all".<ref>{{cite web |first=Donald |last=Barr |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/05/01/archives/shadowy-world-of-men-and-hobbits-the-two-towers-being-the-second.html |title=Shadowy World of Men and Hobbits |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=1 May 1955}}</ref>

[[Anthony Boucher]], reviewing the volume in ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'', wrote that ''The Two Towers'' "makes inordinate demands upon the patience of its readers" with passages which "could be lopped away without affecting form or content". Nevertheless, he lavished praise on the volume, saying "no writer save [[E. R. Eddison]] has ever so satisfactorily and compellingly created his own mythology and made it come vividly alive ... described in some of the most sheerly beautiful prose that this harsh decade has seen in print."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Boucher |first=Anthony |author-link=Anthony Boucher |title=Recommended Reading |magazine=[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]] |date=August 1955 |page=93}}</ref>

''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' called it a "prose epic in praise of courage" and stated that Tolkien's [[Númenor|Westernesse]] "comes to rank in the reader's imagination with [[Asgard]] and [[Camelot]]".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Anon |title=The Epic of Westernesse |work=[[The Times Literary Supplement]] |date=17 December 1954 |page=817}}</ref><ref name="Thompson 1985">{{cite journal |last1=Thompson |first1=George H. |title=Early Review of Books by J.R.R. Tolkien - Part II |journal=[[Mythlore]] |date=15 February 1985 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=61–63 (article 11) |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss3/11}}</ref>

John Jordan, admiring the book's narrative in the ''Irish Press'', wrote of its "weaving of epic, heroic romance, parable, and fairy tale, and the more adventurous kind of detective story, into a pattern at once strange and curiously familiar to our experience". He compared the wizard [[Gandalf]]'s death and reappearance to [[Resurrection of Jesus|Christ's resurrection]], writing that this could be done "without irreverence" because of Tolkien's seriousness about good and [[Evil in Middle-earth|evil]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Jordan |first=John |title=The Little Life of Man |work=Irish Press |date=18 December 1954 |page=4}}</ref><ref name="Thompson 1985"/>

Mahmud Manzalaoui, in the ''[[Egyptian Gazette]]'', wrote that the book "has not pleased readers of the staple modern psychological novel", but that it signified a new trend in fiction.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Manzalaoui |first1=Mahmud |title=No Artificial Allegory in this Fairy Romance |work=[[Egyptian Gazette]] |date=18 February 1955 |page=2}}</ref><ref name="Thompson 1985"/>

In ''[[The Observer]]'', the Scottish poet [[Edwin Muir]]<!--who was hostile to The Return of the King in 1955-->, who had praised ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', called Tolkien's invention of the [[Ent]]s and his account of the [[Battle of Helm's Deep]] magnificent. He wrote that contrary to some people's assumption, one could not equate the Ring to the [[atomic bomb]]; rather, it directly represented evil.<ref name="Muir 1954">{{Cite news |last=Muir |first=Edwin |author-link=Edwin Muir |date=21 November 1954 |title=The Ring |work=[[The Observer]]}}</ref><ref name="Thompson 1985"/>