Place names

[elvensteed]

Why, in novels by Jane Austen and the Brontes etc, are county and place names written as "-----Shire" for example, with sections omitted?

[Peter Pedant]

Brontes - 1840s a bit late...but
1780-1800 It as common to refer to people when criticising them as the M-------s of G------by. I think there are also cartoons with the middle letters missed out. The idea was to escape legal action

anyway after about1795 itdidnt work. IF hecould be identified then he could issue a write and it was to no avail to say Oh, the M------ss of G------by isnt the Marquess of Granby at all, it is someone else completely

And I always concluded that that had spread to the authroesses as well.

[jno]

I don't know if much of what was written was legally actionable really - if you were retailing scandal about the Marquess of Granby then of course you'd want to use another name; but if you were writing pure fiction, I don't know why you wouldn't just call your character the Marquess of Thrumpleton. My guess is that they were just trying to locate their characters and places rather vaguely so they wouldn't get readers questioning their knowledge of actual places or people.

[elvensteed]

Mm, yeah, that's what I thought, both interesting theories though, thanks!