It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly around the East Lyn Valley area of Exmoor.

[1] John Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer in the 17th century Exmoor, a region in North Devon and Somerset, England.

Battling his desire for revenge, John (in West Country English, pronounced "Jan") grows into a respectable farmer who cares well for his mother and sisters.

Sir Ensor’s impetuous and now jealous heir Carver will let nothing thwart his plan to marry Lorna once he comes into his inheritance.

Hoping to reclaim their ancestral lands, the Doones abandon their plan to marry Lorna to Carver and claim her wealth, and side with Monmouth.

The book received acclaim from Blackmore's contemporary, Margaret Oliphant, and as well from later Victorian writers including Robert Louis Stevenson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Thomas Hardy.

George Gissing wrote in a letter to his brother Algernon that the novel was "quite admirable, approaching Scott as closely as anything since the latter".

[4] By his own account, Blackmore relied on a "phonologic" style for his characters' speech, emphasising their accents and word formation.

[5] He expended great effort, in all of his novels, on his characters' dialogues and dialects, striving to recount realistically not only the ways, but also the tones and accents, in which thoughts and utterances were formed by the various sorts of people who lived on Exmoor in the 17th century.

One of the inspirations behind the plot is said to be [citation needed] the shooting of Mary Whiddon on her wedding day at the parish church of Chagford, Devon, in the 17th century.