Richard Doddridge Blackmore was an English novelist who lived from 1825 to 1900. Blackmore was the son of an Anglican curate and was born in Longworth, Berkshire. Blackmore was reared by his aunt for some years after his mother died of typhus before returning to live with his father in Exmoor's rural countryside. As a classics student, he excelled and was awarded a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1847. While working on his debut novel, Blackmore worked as a tutor before changing careers and enrolling in law school.

But, due to ill health, he returned to teaching and eventually moved to Teddington, a riverside town, with his wife and children. He devoted himself to his work there, and his most successful novel, Lorna Doone: A Tale of Exmoor (1869), was a huge hit. Blackmore spent the rest of his life at Gomer House in Teddington, where he is buried next to his loving wife Lucy. He was a pioneering author whose work inspired Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Hardy.