The famous book captures a long-gone Exmoor, but there’s still a feeling of wilderness out on the open moor.
This year marks 150 years since one of England’s most famous stories was published. Evoking a wild, untrammelled landscape dominated by the marauding Doone family, Lorna Doone made its author R. D. Blackmore famous and Exmoor immortal.
Books about places are enduringly popular. Dickens evokes London, George Eliot’s Middlemarch Warwickshire and Thomas Hardy will always make us think of Dorset. Today’s authors are no less place-based: think of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane or Ian MacEwen’s On Chesil Beach, whose narratives owe as much to place as to people.
Lorna Doone, however, does something more. It captures a long-gone Exmoor and makes us think about change. Imagine a landscape in which the roads run out at Porlock and the moors are impenetrable and hostile even before the merciless Doone family is factored in.
The narrator, John Ridd (his father is killed by Doone raiders as the book opens), describes the contrast between the peaceable lower reaches of the River Lynn and the fearsome, thickly wooded Badgeworthy (pronounced ‘Badgery’) valley, where he first encounters the beautiful child, Lorna, who is to occupy his dreams.
この記事は Country Life UK の May 01, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の May 01, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
