Springhaven

Springhaven: a tale of the Great War is a three-volume novel by R. D. Blackmore published in 1887. It is set in Sussex during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and revolves around the plots of the villainous Captain Caryl Carne who attempts to aid a French invasion. Plot The central villain of the tale is Captain Caryl Carne who is half-French and half-English. Whilst holding a commission in the French Army, he returns to his ruined ancestral castle near the coast of England, somewhere between Beachy Head and Brighton, and fills the vaults with gunpowder, keeps up constant communication with the camp at Boulogne, and prepares to aid a landing of the French. Into this story comes Blyth Scudamore, otherwise "Captain Scuddy," who is sent into captivity in France, where he becomes acquainted with Carne's secrets. Other characters include including Captain Zebedee Tugwell, who belongs to a family native to Springhaven; an Admiral Darling who commands on the coast; the wilful Dolly Darling, the admiral's daughter; Faith, Dolly's sister, whose boyfriend heads to the interior of Africa four years;Parson Twemlow, who wants to preach at Nelson; and both Nelson and Napoleon themselves who figure briefly in the novel......... Richard Doddridge Blackmore (7 June 1825 - 20 January 1900), known as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. He won acclaim for vivid descriptions and personification of the countryside, sharing with Thomas Hardy a Western England background and a strong sense of regional setting in his works. Blackmore, often referred to as the "Last Victorian", was a pioneer of the movement in fiction that continued with Robert Louis Stevenson and others. He has been described as "proud, shy, reticent, strong-willed, sweet-tempered, and self-centred." Apart from his novel Lorna Doone, which has enjoyed continuing popularity, his work has gone out of print. Biography: Richard Doddridge Blackmore was born on 7 June 1825 at Longworth in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), one year after his elder brother Henry (1824-1875), where his father, John Blackmore, was Curate-in-charge of the parish. His mother died a few months after his birth - the victim of an outbreak of typhus which had occurred in the village. After this loss John Blackmore moved to Bushey, Herts, then to his native Devon, first to Kings Nympton, then Culmstock, Tor Mohun and later to Ashford, in the same county. Richard, however, was taken by his aunt, Mary Frances Knight, and after her marriage to the Rev. Richard Gordon, moved with her to Elsfield rectory, near Oxford. His father married again in 1831, whereupon Richard returned to live with him. Having spent much of his childhood in the lush and pastoral "Doone Country" of Exmoor, and along the Badgworthy Water (where there is now a memorial stone in Blackmore's honour), Blackmore came to love the very countryside he immortalised in Lorna Doone..................