Lorna Doone

Exmoor in the 1680s: the Doones ride down from their valley to rob and murder as they please, and John Ridd — farmer, wrestler, plain narrator — loves the girl they stole as a child. Blackmore gives the landscape as much attention as the lovers, and the great frost of the winter the Doones are besieged is the best-written weather in Victorian fiction. Paintings of moorland, rebellion skirmish and ...