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-centered." Apart from his novel Lorna Doone, which has enjoyed continuing popularity, his work has gone out of print.

In 1837, Blackmore entered Blundell's School in Tiverton. He excelled in classical studies and later won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1847. During a university vacation he made his first attempt at writing a novel. This was the beginning of The Maid of Sker – not, in fact, completed until many years later, and eventually published in 1872 - which he himself would come to consider his finest novel.