''Christowell: a Dartmoor tale'' is a three-volume novel by

R. D. Blackmore 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 ...

published in 1882. It is set in the fictional village of Christowell on the eastern edge of

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous ...

Title

The title derives from the village of

Christow Christow is a village and civil parish in the Teignbridge district of Devon, England, about southwest of Exeter. The village is in the Teign Valley, just off the B3193 road that links Chudleigh and Dunsford. Christow is on the eastern edge of ...

on Dartmoor. Although Blackmore was keen to point out that "Christow is not my Christowell: though I took the name partly from it ... my Christowell is a compound of several places."Waldo Hilary Dunn, (1956), ''R. D. Blackmore : the author of Lorna Doone, a biography'', page 225

Plot introduction

The complex and picturesque life which goes on in the parish of Christowell is the theme of the novel.''The Literary World'', (1881), Volume 12, page 452 The story begins with the garden where resides “Captain Larks,” alias Mr. Arthur, who is neither Mr. Arthur nor "Captain Larks,"''Blackwood's Magazine'', (1882), Volume 131, page 390 but a mysterious soldier who renounced his own good name to save one who was his brother and fellow officer from disgrace.''The Oxford Magazine'', (1883), Volume 1, page 184 Misfortune has driven him into retirement, and so he lives among his flowers and fruit. Nobody knows anything about him, save the clergyman, Parson Short. Mr. Arthur has a daughter, Rose, who, after visiting him as a child during her holidays for several years, at last comes to live with him at his cottage. It is when she appears, however, that her father's troubles may be said to begin; for she falls in love with Jack Westcombe the son of a retired officer, whom Rose's father declines to see, conscious of the cloud that rests on himself. Among other characters there are Pugsley the carrier, Sir Joseph Touchwood, who has made a fortune out of shoes supplied by contract to Lord Wellington's army, Julia Touchwood, and a Richard ("Dicky") Touchwood who achieves small honors at Cambridge, but greater ones at home as a rat-catcher. The villain of the plot is a Mr. Gaston who attempts every crime from murder to bribery to compass his ends, and succeeds in hoodwinking every one for some time and keeping Mr. Arthur out of his lawful inheritance.

Publication

''Christowell'' was serialized in ''

Good Words ''Good Words'' was a 19th-century monthly periodical established in the United Kingdom in 1860 by the Scottish publisher Alexander Strahan. Its first editor was Norman Macleod. After his death in 1872, it was edited by his brother, Donald Macleod, ...

'' from January to December 1881."Richard Doddridge Blackmore" entry in ''The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1800-1900'', (1999), Cambridge University Press. It was then published as a

three-volume novel The three-volume novel (sometimes three-decker or triple decker) was a standard form of publishing for British fiction during the nineteenth century. It was a significant stage in the development of the modern novel as a form of popular literatur ...

in 1882.

Reception

The novel received fairly good reviews. ''

The Oxford Magazine ''The Oxford Magazine'' is a review magazine and newspaper published in Oxford, England.''The Oxford Magazi ...

'' stated that the novel was "nearly equal" to his others, but mentioned the "weakness

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

lies in the artistic treatment of the details of the plot." '' The Academy'' complained that "Blackmore's characters are too consistently clever", but nevertheless opined that "it is a book to be enjoyed leisurely".''The Academy'', (1881), Volume 20, page 451 ''

Blackwood's Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...

'' wrote that "he is never more entertaining than at this homely level, on page after page, which in other books we should skip, but which here we enjoy as we should a walk in the company of the most genial and gentle of humorists."

References

External links

Christowell
at Project Gutenberg Australia {{R. D. Blackmore 1882 British novels Novels by R. D. Blackmore Novels set in Devon