Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory.

John's encounter with Lorna, Doone Valley outlaw clan, Monmouth Rebellion, Carver's villainy, and final confrontation form historical romance with a revenge arc, so plot scores 86.

I am nothing more than a plain unlettered man, not read in authors, nor fighting fields, nor any history except of this parish only, and that without book, having been recited to me by my father and mother, and those of their generation.

John, Lorna, Carver, Jeremy Stickles, and Tom Faggus are typed but warmly individuated in John's rustic voice without flattening into allegory only, so cast scores 87.

John Fry had now six shillings a week of regular and permanent wage, besides all harvest and shearing money, as well as a cottage rent-free, and enough of garden-ground to rear pot-herbs for his wife and all his family. Now the wages appointed by our justices, at the time of sessions, were four-and-sixpence a week for summer.

Seventy-five chapters with long pastoral stretches between action peaks; Doone raids and Monmouth Rebellion provide spikes amid Exmoor farming life — rewarding but leisurely, so pace scores 83.

If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory.

John Ridd's Somerset yeoman voice — plain, humorous, self-deprecating — is less syntactically ambitious than Hardy but authentically regional and readable, so prose scores 85.

Having obtained from Benita Odam a very close and full description of the place where her poor mistress lay, and the marks whereby to know it, I hastened to Watchett the following morning, before the sun was up. In the farthest and darkest nook, overgrown with grass, and overhung by a weeping-tree a little bank of earth betokened the rounding off of a hapless life.

Exmoor in the 1680s — Doone Valley, Oare parish, Badgworthy Water, Monmouth's Rebellion — topographically precise historical landscape; the moor is a character, so world scores 92.

If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory.

Ch.I's disarming confession establishes John's humble voice before the Doone Valley enchantment — inviting rather than shocking, so hook scores 84.

And they who light upon this book should bear in mind not only that I write for the clearing of our parish from ill fame and calumny, but also a thing which will, I trow, appear too often in it, to wit—that I am nothing more than a plain unlettered man, not read in authors, nor fighting fields.

Historical romance template — outlaw clan, hidden heiress, Monmouth Rebellion backdrop — influential on the genre but less structurally radical than Collins or Doyle, so innov scores 82.

When the little boy came back with the bluebells, which he had managed to find—as children always do find flowers, when older eyes see none—the only sign of his father left was a dark brown bubble, upon a newly formed patch of blackness. "Don, I am so glad that nasty naughty man is gone away. Take me home, Don. Take me home."

Carver drowned in the slough; John spares Carver's child; Lorna restored and married — morally generous conclusion that refuses pure revenge satisfaction, so ending scores 86.