R. D. Blackmore

R. D. Blackmore was an English novelist and horticulturist whose fiction repeatedly returned to the landscapes, speech, and legends of western England. His enduring historical romance Lorna Doone places a family story amid seventeenth-century conflict around Exmoor, while The Maid of Sker shifts the reader toward the coast of Glamorgan and a more intricate tale of inheritance and identity. Frida; Or, The Lover’s Leap is a shorter West Country legend connected with the Doone country and the dramatic landscape around the waterfall at Watersmeet. Blackmore trained in law before making his living through market gardening and literature, an unusual combination reflected in his close attention to weather, terrain, plants, and rural work. Contemporary biographical records note that he regarded The Maid of Sker especially highly, even though Lorna Doone became the book most closely associated with his name.