Lorna Doone, a Romance of Exmoor is an historicalnovel of high adventure set in the South West ofEngland during the turbulent time of Monmouth'srebellion (1685). It is also a moving love story toldthrough the life of the young farmer Iohn Ridd, ashe grows to manhood determined to right thewrongs in his land. and to win the heart arid handof the beautiful Lorna Doone.
Continuously in print since its first publicationin 1809. Lorna Doone has remained perenniallypopular with a wide readership ever since.
Lorna Doone, A Romance of Exmoor, is an historical novel set in the SouthWest of England during the seventeenth century at the turbulent timeof the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth (1685) when the Duke, anillegitimate son of Charles II and pretender to the English throne, landedin Dorset to lead a revolt by supporters of the Protestant succession andwas proclaimed king. Monmouth"s army was soon defeated by forcesloyal to (the Catholic) King James II, and Monmouth was captured andbeheaded. The hero and frequently self-deprecating narrator of thebook is the unsophisticated farmer John Ridd of the idyllically ruralPlover"s Barrows who, as a boy, falls into the hands of the Doones, anaristocratic but parasitic outlaw clan. His life is saved by the beautifuland spirited child, Lorna Doone. On becoming a man, John sets outto find Lorna, even though he is a sworn enemy of the Doones andof Carver, the cowardly murderer of his father. Eventually, Johndiscovers the secret of Lorna"s true parentage and how she came tobe in the company of the Doones, and they marry in a love-match ofaristocratic bride and hard-working self-advanced bridegroom - aformula much approved of in Victorian England. Other notablecharacters in the book are the lovable outlaw Tom Faggus, who seeksthe hand of John"s adored sister Annie, and the rotten aristocrat andally of the Doones, the Marwood of Whichehalse, who John frequentlytrounces in combat, but to whom he resolutely refuses to deliver thecoup de grace. A love story of high adventure, Larna Doone has remainedcontinuously in print and perennially popular with a wide readership,both young and adult, for the century-and-a-quarter since its firstpublication. Blackmore"s writing has been singled out for praise by manyfamous writers including Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins,Margaret Oliphant and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Richard Doddridge Blackmore was born on 7tb June 1825 in theBerkshire village of Longworth. He was the third son of the ReverendJohn Blackmore. His mother, Anne, died of typhus fever in October 1825oa few months after Richard"s birth. He was then put in the care of his auntMary, but rejoined his father when he took up a curacy in Devon in 1832,following his father"s remarriage the previous year. From 1837-43 heattended Blundell"s School in Tiverton, from where he went up to ExeterCollege, Oxford in 1843. He was called to the Bar in 1852. From thistime on he began writing and teaching, and he became a close friend of thedistinguished naturalist, Richard Owen. Blackmore secretly married anIrish Catholic girl called Lucy Macguire on 8 November 1853. In 1857he received a legacy and began to build Gomer House on his fruit farm atTeddington. Lorna Doone was first published in 1869 in three volumes,but it was not successful, selling only 200-300 copies. The following year it waspublished in a single volume to immnediate critical acclaim (most notably inThe Times) and sales success. Although Blackmore wrote extensively(including fourteen novels) and translated other works, some of themscholarly, none met with the success of Lorna Doone. HIS wife died ofpneumonia on 31 January 1888, and he survived her until his death at Teddington on 20 January 1900.
