Shire

Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, hated industrialization. He saw the smoke-belching factories of the West Midlands destroy the rural Warwickshire of his youth. So he built a perfect, nostalgic mirror: The Shire .

If the historical shire is the parent, J.R.R. Tolkien is the godfather who gifted it immortality. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, hated