R. D. Blackmore

Richard Doddridge Blackmore (7 June 1825 – 20 January 1900) was an English Victorian novelist best known for the historical romance Lorna Doone (1869). Educated at Blundell's School and Exeter College, Oxford, he trained in law at the Middle Temple but withdrew from practice due to ill health. He lived for many years in Teddington, where he also managed an orchard and market garden. Blackmore was noted for vivid regional descriptions of the West Country and is regarded as a key figure in the late-19th-century revival of romance fiction.