John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892
in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Tolkien was a philologist and writer. He
worked as reader and professor in English language and Anglo-Saxon at the University
of Leeds. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81.
Tolkien was best known as the author of The Hobbit and
the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In these stories, the author
set a pre-historic era in an invented version of our world which he called by
the Middle English name of Middle-earth. This was peopled by Men (and women),
Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and of course Hobbits.
Below we can watch two clips of JRR Tolkien spliced together. In the first from 1968, he talks about "The Lord of the Rings" books and gives some detail about where some of the ideas for characters came from in ancient stories. In the second (date unknown) he mentions the first time he ever wrote down the idea for "The Hobbit".
For more information about the biography of J. R. R. Tolkien, check these links:
