11. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore Lorna Doone was recommended to me at a party a few years ago, where the cookies of the same name made an appearance. However, unlike the homonymous shortbread or even the Devonshire cream with which it shares an origin, Lorna Doone the novel is dense, filling, and leaves a lingering taste. Lorna Doone is a Devonshire novel like The Betrothed is an Italian novel, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an American novel. It's impossible to divorce from the topography of the moor, the passing of the seasons, the harvesting of grains, the bleeting of sheep, the dialect of Devonshire (or Somerset, as the case may be). Here, in the late seventeenth century, is set our Romeo and Juliet tale, if Romeo were an honest yeoman farmer and Juliet were the scion of high-born outlaws whose name inspired fear throughout the land. Lorna Doone is this Juliet's name, and the Doones are well-known and feared in Devonshire for their entitled brand of ...
Life, Books, and SFF