John Ridd leaves school when his father is murdered by the Doone family, a notorious band of outlaws who live in a secluded valley and terrorize three counties. He takes care of his mother and his two sisters, Annie and Lizzie. He grows to be a huge, strong man who is the champion wrestler of Western England. One day while out fishing, he happens upon a hidden entrance to Doone valley and meets a beautiful little girl named Lorna. He returns as often as he can, and they soon fall in love. One day a Captain Stickles shows up and summons John to London to meet with Jeffreys, the cruel judge who is to be responsible for the Bloody Assizes. Jeffreys wants information on the Doones, but John can’t give him what he wants. etuStickles rrns with him and organizes a force to attack Doone valley, but they are defeated. Meanwhile, John’s cousin, Mr. Huckaback shows up with his daughter Ruth whom everyone tries to hitch up with John. Mr. Huckaback is attempting to mine gold on Exmoor, but he only realizes as much money as he put into it. Famous highwayman, Tom Faggus, also a distant relative, reforms and falls in love with Annie. They get married, but when Monmouth stages his invasion of England, Tom goes to join. Annie sends John after Tom, and he finds him wounded and sends him home. John is caught and almost hung, but Stickles shows up and gets him off. During a great winter storm, John enters Doone Valley and rescues Lorna. She lives with John’s family for a time until Stickles discovers that she is the heir of Lord Dugal, who was kidnapped by the Doones years before. Lorna is taken to London to live with the Lord. Another attack is made on the Doones, and this time it is successful. The Doones are wiped out except for Carver who has a personal feud with John because he wanted to marry Lorna. Lorna stays loyal to John in London, and when the Lord dies, she gives up her money and returns to John. They get married, but at the wedding, Carver shows up and shoots Lorna. John pursues him and kills him in the moor, but gets shot himself. Ruth comes and nurses both John and Lorna back to health.

The first four chapters are absolutely incomprehensible, and I almost quit reading. But once Blackmore hits his stride, it gets pretty good. The characters are good, and the fact that the book is based on real people and real occurrences makes it interesting. I liked it as much as the Sir Walter Scott novels I’ve read.

I approached this book with trepidation because Jim and Kelli (both of whose opinions I respect) both rated it a 2. I always try to give a book 50 pages. If it hasn’t grabbed me by then, I go on to other things. As late as page 35 or so, I figured I wouldn’t make it through. Much of the writing was in dialect and was near-Faulknerian in its incomprehensibility. But then things got better. I very much enjoyed the plot an characters, and the writing wasn’t too bad after the first four chapters. Much of the book is loosely based on fact — there actually were Doones. In addition, it took place at the time of Monmouth’s invasion and the Bloody Assizes, which I had just read about in Macaulay’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND. I read the entire book and enjoyed it, although it did take a certain amount of effort to read.