Why do you think the Hobbit is so famous?

I think Tolkien had an imaginative and artistic fortitude to know how and why the Western world hungers for myth. Tolkien knew that in the age of science and reason people needed a sense of myth that transcended their everyday lives. Tolkien skillfully gave us a world full of magic, creatures, dragons, armies, good, evil...... People can connect and even lose themselves for a while in Tolkien's world.