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 Devon farmstead, with Gilded Library ornament of heather, flintlock and oak. Its 204 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.
