# Why in most 19th century books do they refer to some towns as \_\_\_shire? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 11, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764 "2002-10-11T02:37:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/1 "2002-10-11T02:37:03Z")
This might be GQ material, but I think the people who would know the answer would be here. Anyway, some authors would refer to a town as \_\_\_\_\_\_shire (as in the book Jane Eyre), apparently to hide the name where the book takes place. This doesn’t make sense because there are often plenty of references to the location, often even the name of the town in other parts of the book. Why did they do this? ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/2 "2002-10-11T02:42:38Z")
Oh, and Dickens does this also. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/3 "2002-10-11T12:18:59Z")
There was a thread a year or two back about why nineteenth century authors sometimes disguised proper names in this way. IIRC, the general conclusion was that it was part of the pretence that a novel was describing real events and so the identity of the characters and/or the locations had to be disguised. There was never any question of anyone being fooled by this; it was just a literary device that happened to be fashionable. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/4 "2002-10-11T19:51:43Z")
They did that with the date too, e.g. “It was a balmy summer morning in the year 185-…” ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/5 "2002-10-12T00:34:48Z")
Umberto Eco does this in Foucault’s Pendulum whenever Belbo is talking about his childhood in \_\_\_\_\_\_, and I’ve always wondered why… that book is from the 1980’s, too. But he’s all semiotic and complicated. -fh ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/6 "2002-10-12T00:47:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by clayton\_e \* > Anyway, some authors would refer to \*\*a town as \_\_\_\_\_\_shire \*\* Minor nitpick **clayton\_e** ; if it ends -shire it’s a county not a town. ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/7 "2002-10-12T07:01:38Z")
Dostoyevsky did this as well, usually referring to a Count or Countess \_\_\_\_\_. It was mainly for people that he used \_\_\_\_\_ in his books. ---
**Author:** ![Ich\_Bin\_s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Ich\_Bin\_s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ich_Bin_s)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/8 "2002-10-15T17:04:29Z")
Kafka did this with names, too, if I rember right. K\_ ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-in-most-19th-century-books-do-they-refer-to-some-towns-as-___shire/131764/9 "2002-10-15T17:14:34Z")
The \_\_\_\_ family was one of the rich landed aristocrats of Europe, and many places were “named” after them – “named,” of course, being a slight solecism since they actually had no name, merely a \_\_\_\_ for a surname. After the liberal reforms of the years surrounding World War I and the overthrow of so many monarchies at that time, they have fallen on hard times, and are rarely noted any more. The children of the family, however, do make the news, often as the victim of a crime, and it is not rare to see articles that begin “Joe Culprit, 38, was arrested yesterday for the abuse of \_\_\_\_, 12, and \_\_\_, 5…”