The Maid of Sker

An old Welsh fisherman named Davy Llewellyn finds a small boat drifting off the coast, and inside it a girl of about two years old with no clue to her name or family. He calls her Bardie and takes her in, half convinced that his own luck is bound up with hers. Set on the coast of Glamorgan in the late eighteenth century, Blackmore’s 1872 novel follows Davy’s slow, stubborn effort to trace the child’s origins, a search that carries him across to Devon and into old secrets. Blackmore thought it his finest book, better even than Lorna Doone, and it rewards readers with its salt-air atmosphere and shrewd, talkative narrator. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB.