The Drawing of the Three

The Drawing of the Three is the second volume of Stephen King's Dark Tower sequence, published in 1987 by Donald M. Grant as the continuation of The Gunslinger. Roland is still on the trail of the man in black, walking a beach with the sea on one side and the doors on the other.

King later expanded and revised the series extensively, and this volume sits between the original 1982 opening and the later books in the sequence. The doors open into New York rather than into another part of Roland's own world, and they let the sequence introduce the companions he travels with from then on. Each doorway brings a different life into the gunslinger's account, which is how the book widens a quest that had been one man's pursuit. The doors stand on a beach where the tide and the creatures in the water make even walking a risk, and behind each one is a different person living in New York rather than anyone from Roland's own world. The two he draws are not volunteers, and from this point the pursuit of the Dark Tower is no longer a solitary one.