[HairOfTheDog]

The whole idea of breaking the story into 3 parts irked Tolkien... he was against it. He thought it should be published as one novel, and the publishers sortof forced the split.

The three titles were also the invention of the publisher. He didn't like the names of each book... especially The Two Towers. He thought (correctly) that people would be confused about what towers were being referred to, due to the numerous towers in the story. He was right. The film called out the Two Towers to be Orthanc (Saruman) and Barad-dur (Sauron). The title actually refers to Orthanc and Cirith Ungel, the watchtower where Frodo and Sam end up at the end of TTT.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

The whole idea of breaking the story into 3 parts irked Tolkien... he was against it.

I'm sure you know this, H of the D, but as long as I went thru the hassle of looking it up last night I may as well post it now. Tolkien, like you said, did want LOTR to run as a single novel. This novel would be broken into six books, entitled as follows:
I - "The First Journey"
II - "The Journey of the Nine Companions"
III - "The Treason of Isengard"
IV - "The Journey of the Ringbearers"
V - "The War of the Ring" and
VI - "The End of the Third Age"

Why such a brilliant writer couldn't come up with a synonym for "journey" I'll never know, but I guess it doesn't matter since these titles don't really exist much outside his manuscripts at the Marquette University collection.

Incidentally, I read that when the trilogy idea was forced upon him, he was against calling the third part "The Return of the King," feeling that it gave away too much. Instead he would have used "The War of the Ring."

[Mamzelle]

Here's more confusion about the Two Towers title...I once thought it referred to Minas Tirith and Ortanc!!