The King's England (first printed in 1936) -- A New Domesday Book of 10,000 Towns And Villages -- edited by Arthur Mee, introduces it as 'Shakespeare's Countryside': "We must love it because it is Shakespeare's country, but we love it, too, because it is very heart of very England. It is set in the midst of the Island which is set in the midst of the greatest land-mass of the world, and we may wonder if it is not something more than coincidence that our king of men was born at the centre of all this beauty.
"We have no fairer scene than Warwickshire, and it was Shakespeare's home, his realm, his dear, dear land. He was born by the Avon, and having been out into the great world and found his immortality, he came back to die by the Avon, knowing no fairer place."