Front cover of the publication "The Heiress of Haddon" by William E. Doubleday

William Elliott Doubleday (1866-1959) was the British author of 'The Heiress of Haddon', first published in 1889.

The novel was inspired by Dorothy Vernon (1544–1584), the younger daughter of Sir George Vernon and heiress of Haddon Hall, near Bakewell, Derbyshire, who according to legend, eloped and married John Manners, the second son of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland.

The Vernon family acquired the Manor of Haddon by a 12th-century marriage between Sir Richard de Vernon and Alice Avenell, daughter of William Avenell II.