Set in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth, in wild, hilly Exmoor, England (not that I know anything about Exmoor, but that’s the impression I got), Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor weaves together history, legend, and fiction.
Lorna Doone is, I think, about the length of Dicken’s David Copperfield or Our Mutual Friend; a longish book, but not to be compared to War and Peace or The Count of Monte Cristo.
It’s also a fairly slow-paced book, with a plot that only has rare cliff-hanger moments. I doubt it would hold the interest of a younger reader. I give it roughly a 17+ age range.
Jump to the bottom if you just want the brief conclusion, or read on for all the details!
The Plot [spoilers ahead]
Lorna Doone’s main character is a hearty English farmer, John Ridd by name, who writes the book himself to vindicate the character of his parish—or something like that—and as the word Romance in the title would suggest (also the obvious fact that Lorna, if a name at all—I did have my doubts at the beginning—is clearly a girls’ name), the plot centers around his love for one Lorna Doone.
The Doone family is a notorious family of outlaws. But they are a branch of a noble family, and between initial respect for their pedigree, pity for their misfortunes, and later on, sheer terror of their ruthless thievery, the Doones have become an established fact on Exmoor. John Ridd, called back from school when his father is shot by the Doones, grows up under their shadow. One day, he’s fishing near Doone territory and finds himself suddenly in Doone territory—for which purpose he had to climb a waterfall or something of that sort, so it wasn’t entirely coincidental; but anyway, while exploring with a boy’s love of mischief and desire to flirt with danger, he meets Lorna, “Queen” of the Doone’s. Both of them are in their early teens at this point, and they become friends—and the danger of being friends adds a certain spice to it.
At this point, Lorna seems a pretty flat character. In part, this is because the story is being told in first person, and there’s only so much John can say to explain what she’s like. Moreover when she tells her story for herself, she spends most of her time crying. Later on, you do get to know her a little better. But just now, she’s little more than your ordinary boring splendidly beautiful heroine, and it’s a little hard to really sympathize with her—or with John, when he falls in love, since although he says something about her wit and humor, it sure doesn’t come through much until later.
Eventually—and this is a very condensed version—Lorna nearly starves to death in a tremendously long and deep snowstorm, but John rescues her and brings her to his farm. The snow is so deep and cold that the Doones, not being equipped with home-made snowshoes like John, and not knowing how to use them if they had them, aren’t able to pursue or take revenge.
But now that Lorna is out of the outlaws’ clutches, more about her early history comes to light. In fact, she is not a Doone at all; she belongs to a sister branch of the family and part of the reason she was so carefully guarded by the Doones was because they wanted to marry her to one of them and take control again of the (immense) family fortune. Word of Lorna’s escape and existence spreads, and she is summoned to London, where her lawful guardian lives. She goes, vowing loyalty to John.
At this point there are some subtle hints—suggestions rather—that maybe Lorna won’t come back, but will stay in London to be a fine lady. Just enough to scare you, and make you ready to throw the book in the fire if she does make such a stupid choice.
Fortunately, Lorna comes back once she’s old enough to be her own guardian, unspoiled, ready to forsake her wealth and marry John. One last big climax—actually the greatest cliff-hanger of the book—which I won’t spoil, and then it ends happily ever after.
I find I have not even mentioned my favorite character, John’s cousin Ruth Huckaback. I don’t like her for her last name, that’s for sure. But she was a spirited character and a bit of a wild card in terms of not knowing what part she would play in the plot. In the end, I feel like she did exactly the right thing.
By the by, there was way too much kissing in the book. I suppose allowance must be made for the customs of the times but seriously—there was way too much.
To sum the plot up: it’s not ground-breakingly novel, and there’s not much cliff-hanging suspense. It starts off slowly; I think it took me several weeks to make it through the first third of the book. But once I got about two thirds of the way through I polished it off quickly. When you finally get a handle on where it’s headed, a bit of a sense of mystery develops (where did Lorna really come from?) and a sense of anticipation (what is she going to choose?). In the end, it wrapped up in a very satisfying way.
The book also had its moments of humor. And there were several enjoyable characters—but like the plot, they usually started slow, and only as I got to know them better did I really appreciate Lorna, Tom Faggus, and John’s sister Annie, to name a few. John himself suffered from the characteristic faults of a first person narrator—but more of that when we get around to talking about the book’s style below.
I give it a score of:
7/10 for plot.
Not for excitement; it isn’t very exciting, but for satisfyingness.
The Point
As a first person narrative, Lorna Doone gave the author an opportunity to introduce some expressions of opinion that sound natural coming from John Ridd, farmer—though they might have felt out of place in a third person narrative. I can’t agree with all of these (and maybe the author himself didn’t intend to agree with all of them, but put them into John’s mouth—or pen—as realistic/humorous/witty).
For instance, John says about his stay in London, where he became surprisingly popular: “And the ‘John Ridd cuffs,’ and the ‘Sir John mantles,’ and the ‘Holly-staff capes,’ he put into his window, as the winter was coming on, ay and sold (for everybody was burning with gossip about me), must have made this good man’s fortune; since the excess of price over value is the true test of success in life.” Lest you be sniffing your nose at me, of course I’m not going to do so ridiculous a thing as criticize the obviously sarcastic remark, “since the excess of price over value is the true test of success in life.” The concept of “price over value” is what I criticize, since, except in cases where deception or force occurs, a price agreed upon between buyer and seller cannot possibly be “over value.” I will not pay more for something than it’s worth to me, and I will not take less for something than it is worth to me. Value is subjective. What is the value of a loaf of bread? Is there some magic objective number that’s always true? Where would that number come from—the value of the loaf’s ingredients plus the labor spent to make it? What is the value of its ingredients? Their ingredients? Aside from the impossibility of generating a price in numbers out of the “value” of rain, dirt, sunshine, basic raw materials, and labor, it also simply doesn’t make sense: raw material can be turned into something which has no value, although the value of its ingredients and the labor involved in making it may be considerable. What’s important is how much people want it at a given moment in time.
Another instance: “Let us debate them as we will, our ways are His, and much the same; only second-hand from Him. And I expected something from Him, even in my worst of times, knowing that I had done my best.” If you’re familiar with the Bible, Isaiah 55:8 will probably come to mind. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” We don’t necessarily have an out-and-out contradiction here, because of course in some sense, at least when we do what’s right, our ways are second-hand from God. It’s a clever idea, but needs to be better phrased.
So much for the first sentence; the second sentence is an obviously un-Christian sentiment. Jesus said, “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” (Luke 7:10) Far from having earned anything from God, we have all fallen and come short (Romans 3:23).
There are a few other things I would disagree with, such as John’s idea that it didn’t matter that Lorna was Catholic and he was Protestant—which in context, I suppose it didn’t, because he was hardly Protestant and she was less Catholic—but the relegating of religion to a zone of irrelevance was sad.
However! All that aside, let’s take a look at the big moral of the book. I take it the main point is that riches do not equal happiness, and the wise choice is love and simple pleasures over wealth and court life. It’s a good moral, nicely illustrated by Lorna’s choice. If it were just that, I’d be giving it at least a 9/10, but I feel like I have to take into account the submorals/opinions too.
All things considered, 5/10 for point.
The Style
Good John Ridd has a rather rambling style—which reminds me of something Shakespeare said; ah! what a prince of poets was he… but if I get started on Shakespeare I’ll never get done—and in fact, sounds remarkably like an old man reminiscing. Presumably that was the intention, and it’s admirably consistent. On the other hand, it’s a little wordy, and the book feels slow as a result.
In general I’m not a fan of first person narrative. It seems like there are only two first people: the annoying, sarcastic one (fun to read about, but leaving you with the impression that he’s the last person you’d want to know in real life), or the meditative, slow, diffident one. Of the two, I prefer the annoying one. He has a personality and isn’t scared to show it. The other one is always keeping himself in the background, which makes him much less obnoxious as a person, but also far less interesting to read about. John Ridd is one of the less obnoxious but more boring ones.
I’m not sure I think that third person would have been a better choice for this book. It would certainly have drastically changed the whole thing, and since a thrilling plot point isn’t really the selling point of the narrative, maybe the unique perspective the author was able to write into it by using John as the first person is the real selling point of the book. It does make for some unique turns of phrase and narrative, and occasionally a bit of good quiet humor.
On the whole, my judgement is that the style is wordy and unpruned. That’s not all bad, because it fits with the idea that this is an old man writing, but it does make it more difficult to sympathize with the young John Ridd that you’re reading about. He sounds… old. And a little boring.
5/10 for style.
Conclusion
5.6/10
Obviously, Lorna Doone is not my favorite book, and not one I plan on reading over again. However, it had a satisfying ending, an equally satisfying main moral, and a few likable and one extra likeable character. The writing style, on the other hand, was slow and a little dull at times. Also, there were some theological and economic issues with the book; nothing that affects its main thesis, just side points. If you’re just looking for something to read, it’s not bad; but if you’re having to budget your reading time, there are more worthy books to spend time with!
You can download Lorna Doone for free as an ebook at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17460.
Have you already read the book? Let me know what you thought! And if you have additional questions, I’d be happy to (try to) answer them!
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Geneva D 
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