178 From a letter to Allen & Unwin

[Containing a reference to Sarehole, the hamlet where Tolkien spent pan of his childhood.]

12 December 1955

By the way, there is no need to alter 'Mr' to Professor. In proper Oxford tradition professor is not a title of address – or was not, though the habit has drifted in from places where 'professors' are powerful little domestic potentates. I am sure that without 'professor' I should have heard less about my donnishness, and no one would have said 'The Shire is not far from North Oxford'. It is in fact more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of the Diamond Jubilee – that is as far away as the Third Age from that depressing and perfectly characterless straggle of houses north of old Oxford, which has not even a postal existence.