Strangers have come to the Two Rivers during the Bel Tine holiday. In this remote area three young boys, Rand al'Thor, Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara, look forward to the coming festival. With the mysterious outisders come strange stories of war and of a man named Logain, who claims to be the Dragon Reborn, the one prophesized to save the world, and also to destroy it in his madness. For it is known that no man can channel the One Power without going horribly insane.

On the night before Bel Tine, Trollocs come and ransack the village where the young men live. Together with the mysterious Moiraine and Lan, an even stranger man, the young men escape with a few other companions into the night and make their way toward Tar Valon.  There they discover that they all have roles to play, and that evil seeks them out. They learn that this evil will search anywhere for them: even at the Eye of the World.

The images shown on the left are the various covers that have been used for various editions of this book. In descending order they are:

1. U.S. Hard cover edition
2. U.S. Trade paperback edition
3. Abridged Audio casette
4. From the Two Rivers paperback (U.S. part one of this book with an additional chapter)
5. To the Blight paperback (U.S. part two of this book)
6. Part one of The Wheel of Time (U.S. promotional book with chapters 1-18 in it)
7. The Eye of the World (United Kingdom edition)
8. La Roue du Temps ("The Wheel of Time", France, part one of this book)
9. L'Oeil du Monde ("The Eye of the World", France, part two of this book)
10. German cover, part one
11. German cover, part two
12. Farornas vag ("The Way of Perils", Sweden, Part one of this book)
13. Tidens hjul ("The Wheel of Time", Sweden, Part two of this book)

About the Young Adult versions

From the Two Rivers and To the Blight, are two editions of The Eye of the World that were published by Starscape Books, a division of To books (Jordan's US publisher). The reason for making two editions like this is because Starscape focuses on literature for young adults. With the success of "younger" fantasy lierature (ie, Harry Potter), Tor wanted to introduce The Wheel of Time to a younger audience. These particular editions had colorful cover art, interior illustrations, and a new intro chapter taken from the point of view of a nine year old girl (Egwene)

From the Two Rivers is a paperback edition of the first part of The Eye of the World. It covers everything from the beginning until the group is about to enter Shadar Logoth. It also contains a new chapter at the beginning of the book entitled "Ravens", which recounts a story about Egwene when she is 9 years old. In this chapter she sees subtle signs that already the Dark One's spies are on the look-out for boys of a certain age.

The second book, To the Blight covers the events from Shadar Logoth until the end of the original book. In addtion, it has an expanded glossary at the end. This larger glossary was the first time that certain terms were described, and the only place you can find info on it. (For example, the Tamyrlin is described in this glossary and nowhere else).

Both of these editions have cover illustrations by American artist Charles Keegan, who has done other work for Tor in the past. Combined the two books have around 9 or 10 black & white illustrations throughout, courtesy of drawings from Wizards of the Coast's Wheel of Time d20 Role Playing Game.

For those of you who know a bit about Jordan publishing history, the first part of The Eye of the World has been published before by itself, but without the new cover art and without the new title. All of these "first half" books are considered minor collector's items, while one of them is one of the rarest finds for a WoT collector! The second half of The Eye of the World had never been published on it's own before To the Blight came out.

About the Audio editions

The Eye of the World is available in unabridged audio. It's read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, a real-life husband and wife team who share in the reading of the series. Michael reads the scenes or chapters from predominant male point of views, and Kate does the same for the female point of view chapters. This style of performance appealed to Robert Jordan due to the theme of the balance of sexes in the books.

There are some abridged versions of this novel (read by Mark Rolston) that are no longer published. The abridged versions are not very well edited and Robert Jordan doesn't really care for them. If you're interested in hearing the novels in audio form, put your time into the Kramer / Reading versions.