January 3 marks the 121st birth anniversary of author of "The Hobbit", J.R.R. Tolkien. People around the world celebrate as the novel which has now become a movie has been named the Blockbuster of 2012.
J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for his works, "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" was born January 3, 1892 and people around the world are busy celebrating his 121st birth anniversary today.
"[I remember] the actual flashpoint," Tolkien told the BBC in March 1968 about his idea for The Hobbit. "I can still see the corner in my house in 20 Northmoor Road where it happened.
"I'd got an enormous pile of exam papers there and was marking school examinations in the summer time, which was very laborious, and unfortunately also boring. I remember picking up a paper and nearly gave it an extra mark, or extra five marks actually, because one page on this particular paper was left blank. Glorious! Nothing to read. So I scribbled on it, I can't think why, 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'."
According to The Tolkien Society's Shaun Gunner, inspiration to write the book came to Tolkien during his 50 years tenure in Oxford.
"He moved to Oxford in 1911 to study classics at Exeter College, he was rejected the year before but got in the year afterwards," says The Tolkien Society's Shaun Gunner.
"But he didn't actually enjoy classics so he later changed to study English Language and Literature".
"Then he took a brief two years out in Leeds and came back and became the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, and did that for many years until 1945," said Gunner.
75 years after the publication of the book, the novel, which has been made into a film by director Peter Jackson is touted to the "The Blockbuster" of 2012.