Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825-1900) was an English novelist. Born in Longworth, Berkshire, Blackmore was the son of a Anglican curate. Following his mother’s death from typhus, Blackmore was raised by his aunt for several years before returning to live with his father in the rural countryside of Exmoor. He excelled as a student of classics, earning a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1847. As he worked on his first novel, Blackmore found employment as a tutor before switching career paths and entering law school. Due to ill health, however, he returned to teaching and later moved to the riverside town of Teddington with his wife and children. There, he devoted himself to his writing, publishing Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (1869), his most successful novel, to resounding acclaim. Recognized as a pioneering author whose work inspired Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Hardy, Blackmore spent the rest of his life at Gomer House in Teddington, where he remains buried next to his beloved wife Lucy.