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J.R.R. Tolkien (born January 3, 1892, Bloemfontein, South Africa—died September 2, 1973, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England) was an English writer and scholar who achieved fame with his children’s book The Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). At age four Tolkien, with his mother and younger brother, settled near Birmingham, England, after his father, a bank manager, died in South Africa. In 1900 his mother converted to Roman Catholicism,...