42 years ago today, 'Lord of the Rings' creator, J.R.R. Tolkein died
Forty-two years ago today on September 2, 1973, the world lost literary great J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of the famed "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" series.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in South Africa and raised in England. He graduated from Oxford, served in World War I and went on to become a professor at his alma mater.
During his time as a professor, he began working on the mystical novel that became the world-wide phenomenon we know today. When Tolkien was grading papers one day at Oxford, he randomly wrote the phrase, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit," atop a blank sheet of paper.
The rest is history. Tolkien went on to create his first novel "The Hobbit" published in 1937. Almost twenty years later, the sequel "The Lord of the Rings" followed in three volumes, in 1954 and 1955.
The novels were met with raving reviews, and Tolkien became an instant classic. The professor retired from teaching in 1959, and was graced with more and more literary fame until his death on September 2, 1973 at age 81.
It was another 28 years after Tolkien's death before the first "Hobbit" movie premiered. Today, there have been six installments of "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit:"
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