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- Herausgeber: Quickie Classics
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Lorna Doone (1869) is John Ridd's first-person chronicle of love and vengeance on Exmoor. Set amid the Monmouth Rebellion and the Bloody Assizes, it entwines a yeoman's courtship of Lorna—ward of the Doone outlaws—with feud, ambush, and the cadences of rural labor. Blackmore blends Scottian historical romance with Victorian regional realism: melodrama is checked by close observation of weather, waterways, hedgerows, and dialect, making the landscape a moral arena as well as a stage. R. D. Blackmore, an Oxford-trained classicist, brief barrister, and later market gardener in Teddington, drew on a West Country upbringing and Tiverton schooling to anchor the book's topography and folk memory. Legends of the Doone band and tales of Tom Faggus, together with his classical pastoral, shaped cadence and imagery; horticultural practice sharpened his botanical precision. Composed against the vogue for sensation fiction, the novel restores gravity through place and character. For readers who relish the sweep of Scott, the regional depth later associated with Hardy, or finely grained nature writing, Lorna Doone remains rewarding. It is both an engrossing romance and a meditation on community, law, and land—a classic that marries narrative momentum to the durable truths of landscape. Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
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Lorna Doone (Summarized Edition)
Table of Contents
Introduction
In R. D. Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, a tale of love struggling to root itself in soil patrolled by violence, the claims of conscience, community, and memory continually press against the brutal allure of might, asking whether tenderness and justice can survive where power is seized in the dark, where law arrives late across moor and combe, and where a young farmer’s steadfast heart learns to weigh loyalty against fear as the wild Exmoor landscape both shelters and exposes secrets, shaping destinies as surely as weather, and making every choice echo across families, valleys, and the fragile peace of a region.
First published in 1869 during the Victorian era, Lorna Doone is a historical romance and adventure novel set on Exmoor, the borderland of Devon and Somerset in southwest England, during the late seventeenth century. Blackmore frames the story as a retrospective first-person memoir, lending the narrative the resonance of remembered life rather than documentary chronicle. The moors, wooded combes, and rapid streams provide not merely scenery but a living stage upon which local farming communities confront a notorious outlaw clan. The novel’s period backdrop includes regional unrest and national turbulence, yet its focus remains intimate, grounded in domestic rhythms and personal vows.
At the center stands John Ridd, a yeoman farmer whose childhood is marked by loss and by the shadow the Doone family casts over Exmoor. Wandering into their hidden valley, John discovers Lorna, a young woman whose grace and self-possession complicate inherited hatreds and ignite a secret attachment. The story follows his maturation from impressionable boy to determined man, balancing pastoral detail with episodes of danger, pursuit, and narrow escape. The tone is earnest yet frequently genial, the pace alternating between homely routine and sudden violence, while the voice—plainspoken, reflective, and wry—invites readers to trust a narrator who cherishes both land and kin.
Blackmore’s craft is distinguished by luxuriant landscape writing, tactile descriptions of weather and work, and careful handling of regional speech that adds flavor without obscuring sense. He relishes the practicalities of rural labor—sowing, shearing, milling—so that cottages and fields feel inhabited by time and care. Scenes of suspense are built patiently, with attention to vantage and terrain, and flashes of humor punctuate sober reflection. The first-person form allows digression and hindsight, producing a layered texture in which incident, custom, and character illuminate one another. The result is a reading experience at once immersive and measured, inviting contemplation alongside excitement.
Themes emerge naturally from this weave of place and plot. The novel probes the difference between law and justice, between communal norms and predatory power, and between vengeance and the discipline of mercy. It considers class and legitimacy, the weight of ancestry against the dignity of honest work, and the stubborn hope that love can cross entrenched boundaries. Memory itself becomes a theme: how a life is narrated, which events are emphasized, what silences remain. Throughout, nature is more than a backdrop; its beauty and hazards pattern the characters’ choices, suggesting that moral growth, like cultivation, requires patience, courage, and steadiness.
These concerns travel well into the present. Readers will recognize debates about the rule of law when institutions falter, about the corrosions of gang power and the seductions of belonging, and about how communities sustain themselves under pressure. John’s attention to craft and stewardship speaks to current conversations about food, land, and locality. The romance, meanwhile, models tenderness that resists dehumanization without sentimentalizing danger. The book also invites reflection on narrative accountability: how personal testimony can humanize history while revealing its partiality. In an era hungry for rootedness, Lorna Doone offers a keen sense of place joined to ethical inquiry.
Approached today, the novel rewards patience with a fullness rare in modern pacing: a world entered, not skimmed; a voice heard, not sampled. Its mixture of homely wisdom, peril, and moral testing keeps the pages alive while preserving a spoiler-safe aura of discovery. For newcomers to nineteenth-century fiction, it offers an accessible path into historical romance grounded in credible labor and landscape. For seasoned readers, it renews familiar pleasures with fresh specificity. Above all, it endures because it refuses to divorce beauty from responsibility, insisting that love worth keeping must reckon with history, and that courage begins close to home.
Synopsis
Lorna Doone (1869) by R. D. Blackmore is a historical romance and adventure set on Exmoor in the late seventeenth century, narrated retrospectively by the yeoman farmer John Ridd. The story begins with a trauma that shapes his life: his father is murdered by the notorious Doone clan, aristocratic outlaws who rule a hidden valley by terror and custom. As John grows, his plain work on the farm, the code of his moorland community, and the persistent memory of that crime form the frame of his world. Blackmore establishes a landscape of beauty shadowed by lawlessness, where private grief meets a larger disorder.
Curiosity and courage draw the adolescent John up the combes and along the watercourses that locals avoid, until a secret path leads him into the Doone valley. There he encounters Lorna, a girl of unusual grace who is being brought up among the outlaws under the protection of their aging leader, Sir Ensor Doone. Their first meetings, tentative and concealed, open a counterworld to the feud that has defined John’s life. He returns home changed by wonder as much as by danger, holding a private allegiance that complicates his obligations to family, neighbors, and the memory of his father.
Within the valley, Lorna’s position is precarious. She is cherished by Sir Ensor yet watched by Carver Doone, a violent kinsman whose ambition and desire make her future uncertain. John, growing into strength and steadiness, navigates the perils of clandestine visits and seeks ways to protect her without inflaming the long bitterness between farmsteads and outlaws. Blackmore counterpoints courtship with menace, showing love as a form of defiance that must reckon with custom, kinship, and retaliation. The pastoral rhythms of ploughing, markets, and moorland seasons stand alongside ambushes and raids, revealing a society where law is frail and honor contested.
The arrival of royal authority in the form of Jeremy Stickles, a capable government agent, widens the arena of conflict. He assesses the Doone threat, gauges local loyalties, and draws John into efforts to curb the outlaws without plunging Exmoor into open war. Meanwhile, tensions within the Doone household sharpen as power shifts and internal codes fray. John’s reputation as a fair-minded but formidable man grows, and his secrecy becomes harder to keep. Blackmore uses this pressure to study conscience and responsibility: how far can a man pursue private happiness when justice demands action and violence may ensue?
Events beyond the moor intrude decisively as the Restoration era lurches toward rebellion. The rising of the Duke of Monmouth and the subsequent royal crackdown send ripples through Devon and Somerset, entangling farmers, magistrates, and soldiers. Amid this turbulence, questions about Lorna’s origins move from rumor to pressing fact, suggesting claims and dangers that exceed the Doone valley. John must weigh loyalty to home against journeys and risks undertaken for her safety. The historical backdrop intensifies the narrative’s stakes, as shifting regimes and summary justice mirror the personal uncertainties of identity, belonging, and the right to choose one’s fate.
The novel gathers toward decisive confrontations. Raids scar the countryside, bargains are struck and broken, and long-hidden information threatens to reorder allegiances. Carver’s pursuit grows ruthless, while Lorna’s emerging status complicates every refuge she seeks. John and his household endure trials that test strength, patience, and faith in the law. A renewed drive to penetrate or dismantle the Doone stronghold brings peril to both sides, and an act meant to sever John and Lorna’s bond nearly succeeds. Blackmore sustains suspense while preserving the dignity of daily life, keeping the outcome uncertain even as justice and retribution draw near.
Without disclosing final turns, the closing movements reconcile the novel’s strands of romance, communal duty, and the slow assertion of lawful order. Blackmore’s enduring achievement lies in how he binds landscape to character, making Exmoor’s combes, mists, and waters an active force shaping courage and cruelty alike. Lorna Doone has remained resonant for its blend of regional realism, historical incident, and a love story poised against inherited violence. It invites reflection on whether gentleness can survive amid vendetta and whether identity is granted by birth or earned by conduct, leaving a sense of hard-won possibility rather than easy triumph.
Historical Context
Lorna Doone (1869) is set chiefly on Exmoor, the upland straddling the Devon–Somerset border in southwest England, during the later Stuart decades. Its action ranges among real places such as the Badgworthy Valley (often called the Doone Valley), Oare parish, Porlock, and the coastal inlets of the Bristol Channel. The setting reflects parish-based governance, manor houses of the local gentry, and county courts that rode circuit through market towns. Travel moved along packhorse tracks and rough lanes; formal policing did not yet exist. Richard Doddridge Blackmore drew on Exmoor’s topography and local folklore for a romance anchoring private fortunes in a distinctly regional landscape.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Church of England and royal authority were reestablished across the counties. Parish vestries and churchwardens administered local charity and discipline; tithes supported clergy; and justices of the peace from the gentry oversaw Quarter Sessions, licensing, roads, and the poor law. County militias, or Trained Bands, mustered under lieutenants appointed by the Crown. On Exmoor, these institutions coexisted with dispersed farms and hamlets, where authority relied on reputation and neighborly obligation as much as statute. Assize judges periodically visited regional centers to try serious crimes, the principal instrument of centralized justice in the West Country.
National politics in the 1670s and 1680s shaped the region. The Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681) pitted Whigs seeking to bar the Catholic Duke of York from succession against Tories defending hereditary right. When James II acceded in 1685, Protestant dissent remained strong in the West Country. James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, long popular there, landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685 and proclaimed himself king. His rebel army, drawn largely from artisans and farmers, marched through Dorset, Devon, and Somerset before being defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. These events form a crucial backdrop to the novel’s action.
In the rebellion’s aftermath, the Crown imposed harsh retribution in the West. Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys led the “Bloody Assizes” in August–September 1685, trying thousands at Dorchester, Taunton, Exeter, Wells, and other towns. Hundreds were executed, and many more were transported to the Caribbean as indentured laborers. The punitive reach of assize justice, and the pressures placed upon rural families suspected of sympathy or aid, are integral to the novel’s tension. Blackmore situates household loyalties, parish reputations, and gentry influence within the climate of surveillance and fear that followed Sedgemoor, showing how national policy penetrated even isolated moorland communities.
The severe winter of 1683–84, widely recorded in England, provides a striking environmental context. The River Thames in London froze solid enough to host frost fairs, and deep, persistent cold affected agriculture, transport, and fuel supplies. In upland districts like Exmoor, snow, ice, and blocked lanes cut off farms and parishes for weeks, endangering livestock and people. Contemporary accounts describe hardships across the West Country, where rivers and mills stalled and fodder ran short. Blackmore incorporates this “Great Frost” to test endurance and resourcefulness, aligning personal trial with a documented climatic episode that shaped rural experience in the later Stuart period.
Exmoor’s seventeenth-century economy centered on pastoral farming, small freehold and leasehold holdings, and the wool trade linking moorland flocks to coastal and inland markets. Dunster’s Yarn Market, built in 1609, symbolized regional commerce, while Barnstaple and Exeter were important outlets for cloth and provisions. Packhorse trains negotiated narrow lanes, and coastal ports such as Minehead and Porlock handled short-haul trade in timber, grain, and fish. Parish structures governed poor relief and apprenticeship, and seasonal labor bound households together. The novel’s households and fields reflect this practical world of livestock, hedges, and water-meadows, where prosperity was modest and security depended on kin and locality.
Roadside robbery and rural banditry troubled late Stuart England, especially along lonely roads and moorland tracks. Law enforcement relied on parish constables, the “hue and cry,” and periodic assize courts, with gentry patronage shaping outcomes. In the Exmoor area, Dunster Castle—seat of the Luttrell family—embodied local power and protection. Blackmore drew on longstanding Exmoor folklore about a predatory “Doone” clan said to haunt Badgworthy Valley; historians have found no documentary proof for such a family, but the tales persisted. The novel transforms this folklore into a sustained narrative of lawlessness and retribution, set against the legal frameworks and geographies of the time.
Published in 1869, Lorna Doone belongs to the historical romance tradition shaped by Sir Walter Scott, combining documented public events with regional speech and landscape. Victorian readers prized such regional novels, and Blackmore’s use of dialect, farmwork detail, and Exmoor place-names reflects a wider nineteenth-century interest in local character amid national consolidation. The book treats Restoration politics, the Great Frost, and the Bloody Assizes as forces testing communities, while criticizing arbitrary justice and the sway of privilege. It affirms ordered authority tempered by conscience, casting the West Country’s past as a moral field where loyalty, law, and neighborliness contend.
Lorna Doone (Summarized Edition)
Preface
Named a 'romance' because its incidents, characters, era, and scenery all breathe the fantastic, the teller declares no wish to burden the tale with the solemn weight of full-blown history. Yet he believes each outline is drawn with extra care, every simple scene warmed and quickened beyond the slight color usually granted a mere 'legend.' He is certain that any Exmoor-born soul who meets these pages will instantly remember childhood nurse-stories: the outlaw Doones stalking the depths of Bagworthy Forest, the lovely captive raised among them, stalwart John Ridd’s giant strength, and the ever-thrilling exploits of bold Tom Faggus. March, 1869.
CHAPTER I
ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION
I, John Ridd of Oare, set out to recall the deeds of our neighborhood, begging God for life and memory. I own no learning beyond Scripture and Shakespeare, yet am content as an honest yeoman. My father, prosperous holder of the largest Exmoor farm and lover of letters, could sign his name proudly, so he sent his only son to Peter Blundell’s famed grammar-school at Tiverton. There, by twelve, I sat in the upper room, wrestling with Eutropius, Caesar, and six bold lines of Ovid, even daring the opening of the Greek verb, while all but Mother called me thick-headed.
Summoned home before mastering the next ten pages, I thank providence for sparing my slow brain, though my grandson—keen of wit but slight of frame—swears I never could have managed them. Proof I was there remains: “John Ridd” stands cut into bench and desk, each promotion marking deeper oak. The boy lately fought a scoffer for that proud scar and added the playful “winkeys” we once prized. To fashion a winkey, a scholar hollows the wood, rims it with saltpetre, fixes a burning tallow “rat’s-tail” on the boss, then stirs the hissing crater until smoke, sparks, and a sudden well-shaft swallow the plank.
When Lowman swells and Taunton Brook charges like a roan horse, the gray walls of Blundell are ringed with water, and copper-booted Cop guards the grooved flood-boards. Deputies spy the rising torrent; outside the gate white pebbles spell the founder’s “P.B.” The instant a wave kisses even one stone, any smallest lad may dash indoors and bellow “P.B.!” Caps and books fly to the rafters, ranks dissolve, day-boys are jostled out, and masters, their classes vanished, clap their volumes shut and toast each other with pipes and cordial. Yet I linger too long on trifles; after such pounding I believe wheat, not hatred, should flourish.
CHAPTER II
AN IMPORTANT ITEM
On 29 November 1673, my twelfth birthday, I squandered every farthing on sweetmeats for the little fellows until the big ones seized them. At five, Tuesday dismissal, we boarders swept the day-boys in disorder from the school porch to Cop’s gate. No pedigree spared them: grocers’ lads, poulterers, Carews, Bouchiers, Bastards—all were ‘caddes,’ eating free and carrying their own commons. We helped devour those commons, let them chatter, then dutifully booted them off Blundell ground. Some shopkeepers’ sons yielded like decent folk; some highborn boys struck back; yet each accepted the justice of a kicking for not paying.
When the ‘charity-boys’ were gone and Cop clanged the gates, six or seven of us small boarders perched on the bars, dusk and fog hiding us from his eye. Sucking parliament and dumps bought with my hoarded birthday money, we watched the road, hoping to see pack horses guarded from my cousin Mr. Faggus, the famous highwayman. A boy elbowed me; I struck his face; he butted my stomach; breathless, we set to end it later at the Ironing-box, candles lit after the convoy passed. Then two horses swung from Lowman bridge: John Fry on Smiler, sorrel Peggy beside. “Please, masters, where be Jan Ridd
I stepped forward. “Oh, John, holidays start next fortnight; why bring Peggy through this cruel cold?” He croaked, “Mother’s saved the apples, Betty’s turned the black puddings, not a blackbird snared—all for thee, lad.” “And Father?” “Vayther’ll be at the crooked post by the telling-house; Christmas bacon keeps him.” I saw the lie, lead settled in my chest. Boys shouted for the bout with Robin Snell; I refused, they shoved. Fry winked behind the bars, blunderbuss on his knee. “Christ’s will; better fight, Jan,” he whispered. Gatekeeper willing, he dismounted, boots, hat and Smiler caked with mire, lighter Peggy switching her tail.
Older boys, the solemn tutors who loved teaching us cuts and parries yet shirked blows themselves, raced down the cobbled causeway when they heard of ‘a snug little mill’ at the gate. Whether the name came from Greek or from wind-driven arms mattered not; a ring was formed and we inside had to feign cheer. I, sworn to keep the Ridd blood stout before John Fry, recalled that none had yet beaten me through threescore bouts fought on the Ironing-box; but my spirits sagged, for Robert Snell loomed taller, thicker-skulled, and my heart already felt bruised.
John Fry pushed through the railings with a message for the headmaster; after Peggy and Smiler were tied he hurried to me, eyes wet. “Doon’t thee goo for to do it, Jan; doon’t thee do it, for gude now.” I answered that backing out was too late. He sighed, “The Lord be with thee, Jan, and turn thy thumb-knuckle inwards.” The fighting ground, a wedge of paving, filled with boys standing guard, while smaller ones peered between legs. Phoebe hobbled out and was led away, costing two seniors their first round. Stripping, I laid jerkin and waistcoat with Hooper; Robin Snell, kerchief-belted, bounced and glared.
“Come now, shake hands, you devils; show good sport, and Lord love the better man!” a third-former shouted. Robin gripped my palm, stared with scorn, then cracked my face before I could lift a guard. “Whutt be ’bout, lad? Hutt un again, Jan, wull ’e? Well done then, our Jan boy!” cried John Fry as I answered with a heavy swing. Blow after blow clattered; when the round ended I staggered to my corner, lungs hammering. “Time!” barked the monitors; counted to two, I rose and fought. Tutored by my second I boxed warily despite knuckles burning while a traitor called, “Finish him off, Bob
As we clinched, my backer whispered, “Famously done, Jack; only keep your wind up and you’ll go right through him!” John Fry ranged, quizzing onlookers if I might die and how Mother would weep, then learned I had fought three-score times already. He bent to my bloody ear: “Never thee knack under, Jan, or never coom naigh Hexmoor no more.” Fire raced through me; I set my fists, met Bob’s grin with hatred, slipped his left and drove my fist between his eyes. Breath returned, heart cooled; I spared neither him nor myself until his strength broke, and afterward helped carry Robert Snell to bed.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES
The track from Tiverton toward Oare, once a mire that swallowed spurs and horses, has been partly firmed with rods and stump-oaks, a triumph for the man who watches over Exmoor roads. After a day’s rest at the White Horse in Gold Street, where both he and the nags nursed bruises, he rides out at cock-crow with John Fry. John keeps the reason for their summons hidden, spinning tales of the boy’s father, while the lad hopes it means a good harvest and rats in the corn chamber. By noon they reach Dulverton, halt to bait Peggy and Smiler, and brace for the bogs ahead.
Inside the Dulverton inn John strides to the bar, chest out, and roars, "Hot mutton pasty for two travellers at number five, in five minutes—dish it in the tin with gravy, same as Tuesday!" The promised five grows to twenty, yet hunger sharpens the smell until the boy thanks heaven for empty space to fill. The steaming pasty proves the finest food he has ever tasted. When plates are clean he reflects that decent boys ignore fancy clothes until they start courting, then heads to the yard pump, eager for soap and water, while John leans idly by the stable door.
A maid, sheltering her complexion with an Italian glass, approaches the pump where the boy sluices himself. She strokes his bruised chest and coos, "Good little boy—blue eyes! Who beat you? Let me feel; you shall love me." He says John waits and father will meet them near the tollhouse. She asks how far to the sea at Watchett; he answers it is distant, yet pumps until mist pearls on her glass. She lunges to kiss him; he ducks, her chin hits the handle, hostlers laugh. They mount, turn a bend, and confront a coach and six; John doffs his hat as the boy stares.
In the half-open city coach rode the foreign lady who had tried to kiss me, a dark-eyed maid beside her, and, in the place of honour, a wrapped beauty with a chubby boy flaunting a white cockade. The child stared at Peggy, so I doffed my cap; the fine lady blew me a kiss, taking me for a lad. When I turned to salute the foreign woman she froze, as though she had never met me. The shock made Peggy leap; I barely bowed again before galloping after John Fry. All he would tell me was, "Papist murderers, lad, and none of my concern.
We followed a vanishing track; fog thickened, water slipped from stunted oaks, hooves splashed steadily. John dozed, beard sparkling. He jolted up: "Mercy of God! Where be we? Old ash gone. Hear aught?" "Only your snore," said I. "Listen, lad." A slow creak wandered through the mist, three times. "Fine music," he breathed. I asked, "Hanged a Doone?" "Never," he hissed. The sound led us to the crossroads gibbet[1]; Red Jem Hannaford swayed. John chuckled: "My notch on the post, hangs tidy. Good-night, Jem." I pitied the man; John trotted on, the chain creaking behind.
Mist thick as wool could not calm John. "We're near the Doone track, two miles from Dunkery. Go sober if you love your mother." My legs quivered, yet I longed to rush across the outlaw path. We slid into a deep goyal, rode the grassy bottom, and climbed the far side, ears straining. From the sludge below rose the sucking tread of horses, men grunting, leather creaking, irons clinking. John slipped off Smiler. "God's sake, Jack, round her belly—let her go where she will." I followed, reins on my arm. "Drop the bridle," he whispered, "with luck they'll think them forest ponies.
Mist thinned, skyline showing us to the riders below. I slid beside John, cords creaking; he bleated like a chilled sheep to muffle me. The leading horseman passed twenty yards under us. A gust cleared the glen, and red cloud-light spread fingers over the moor. Beacon flame leapt skyward. John breathed in my ear, "Dunkery Beacon; dare not light it now except to guide the Doones home since the night they hurled the watchmen from it." I crawled to a stony ledge ringed with dead fern, lay twenty feet above the silent troop, breath caught in wonder.
Beacon soared in fiery columns, crimson beard licking the brooding sky; its glare flooded hills and carved the valleys black. Below, more than thirty riders drifted through the glowing throat of the glen: bulky men in plate and leather, guns dangling, plunder piled behind, flagons swinging. Skinned sheep, deer, and, horrifying, a tiny child in bright clothes hung head-down across one saddle. Rage seized me; I jumped on a rock and shouted. One man levelled his carbine, but another laughed, “Only a pixie—save your powder.” When danger passed, John Fry oozed from hiding and growled, “Small thanks, Jan, if my new wife had turned widow.
Ashamed, I muttered nothing. We reclaimed Peggy and Smiler grazing and plodded home. No father met us—neither at the telling-house, the crooked post, nor the linhay, though the dogs clamoured. The lantern by the cow shed was dark; no voice cried, “Hold your noise!” I stared at gateposts tall as he, at the harness-room door where he smoked and sang, half-resenting imagined guests who delayed his welcome. My gift pipe stayed in my pocket. Sudden dread hollowed my chest; I slipped to the saw-pit and crouched beneath timber, wanting to lack. Women’s sobs drifted down; mother and sister clung together, hands over their eyes.
