Home / Browse / Autographs & Signed Books / Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor.
BLACKMORE, R. D.
Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor.
In three volumes.
Publisher: London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1869
Stock code: 62152
Price: £17,500 Currency Conversion
First edition, presentation copy to his close friend and fellow Devon novelist Mortimer Collins (1827-1876), inscribed by the recipient on the first front free endpaper: "Mortimer Collins (from R. D. Blackmore) Knowl Hill Berks, April 1869", and with his ownership inscriptions in the latter volumes. R. D. Blackmore's classic romance, inspired by the legends of North Devon and Somerset associated with Exmoor, was initially published in this three-volume edition to little acclaim, but the one-volume edition issued the following year quickly sold out, ensuring the author's subsequent fame. The novel, notable for its use of local dialect and sometimes archaic language, and which has been the basis for seven film versions and three BBC adaptations, has been continuously in print since publication. The autograph letter from Blackmore to his publisher ("Dear Mr Marston") is dated 14 March 1895 and refers to Lorna Doone, detailing scenes of action suitable for illustration: "'Slain by the Doones' … I have made those villains kill him - not in the woods, as accg. to tradition, but - on the banks of the Badgworthy stream; & perhaps a good drawing might be made of the body lying by the waters, with the broken rod still grasped … and his daughter stealing up in doubt, tired with the long search for him … Certainly I think it wd be better to use any of the sketches in L.D. - Only, let us not exaggerate the scenery too much, but have it more like the photographs; furzy, rocky, barren, boggy but not quite Alpine." Provenance: 1) Mortimer Collins (1827-1876), ownership inscriptions dated April 1869; 2) after his death, to his brother-in-law F. Percy Cotton, editor of Selections from the Poetical Works of Mortimer Collins (1886), with Cotton's ownership inscriptions dated 1879 and bookplates; 3) American Art Association, lot 19, 7 January 1931; 4) later bookplates of E. E. Taylor.
3 volumes, octavo. Original blue watered cloth lettered in gilt on spines (Carter's A binding), sides blocked in blind with thick one-line rule enclosing two-line rule, cream endpapers. Blue morocco-backed slipcases and chemises. With 16pp. adverts at end dated March 1869. Inscriptions and bookplates as noted below. Recased, lacking preliminary blank to vol. 1, some browning to vol. 1 and to endpapers of vols 2 and 3, corners slightly bumped or rubbed, spines and edges slightly darkened, still a good set. With later 2pp. autograph letter signed by Blackmore to his publisher Edward Marston loosely inserted.
