R. D. Blackmore

Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825–1900) was an English novelist, born in Berkshire, the son of a curate, and raised partly in Devon, where his family had deep roots. He was educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton and at Oxford, practiced briefly as a lawyer and taught classics before an inheritance allowed him to buy land at Teddington, where he spent forty years growing fruit for market with more passion than profit. He wrote fourteen novels, most set in the West Country; Lorna Doone (1869), his third, was a slow seller that became one of the most popular books of the century and is the only one still widely read.