14 h 44 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does following your heart cost when family, society and common sense all point the other way?
Nancy, the spirited young woman at the center of Rhoda Broughton's Victorian novel, speaks her mind and feels deeply. She laughs when she is expected to be solemn and resists the call to stay calm. Around her, courtship and marriage bring questions of money, duty and desire—questions that leave women with hard choices and little room to move.
A marriage between partners widely separated in age brings those pressures close. What place does the heart have when a choice must also answer to family and society? Broughton explores that tension through conversation, social detail and close attention to feeling. Her dry, quick humor gives the story lightness without brushing aside the weight of choosing whom to love.
What you’ll discover
- A heroine with spirit Meet a young woman whose outspoken nature makes room for laughter and deep feeling.
- A marriage of unequal years Explore the questions raised when partners enter marriage across a wide gap in age.
- The pressures behind courtship Look beyond romance to the money and expectations that shape a woman's choices.
- Wit amid strong feelings Enjoy dry, quick humor that brightens scenes without denying their emotional weight.
- The price of choosing Consider what following the heart demands when common sense points toward another path.
Who will love it
Readers who love a chatty heroine, big family comedy, country house life and Victorian marriage stories, and who enjoy a narrator who laughs at herself while her heart gets ahead of her.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Six children and a visiting general
- A girl's plan and a man's silence
- A proposal answered with a bargain
- Wedding, farewells and a dreary honeymoon
- Dresden and a touchy young neighbor
- Home, the bag and a leaving
- A lonely wife and a worrying neighbor
- Frank's tangle and Nancy's lie
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Nancy GreyThe plain, blunt, nineteen-year-old narrator, who marries a rich older man to help her family and has to learn what her own heart wants.
- Sir Roger TempestA kind, upright general of forty-seven, a friend of Nancy's father, who falls in love with her and fears he is too old.
- BarbaraNancy's lovely and gentle sister, who cares for every sad creature and stays at the center of the family's affection.
- AlgyThe eldest brother, handsome and proud, newly in the army, who is drawn into trouble with a neighbor.
- BobbyA cheerful, rough-voiced brother in the navy, who plays tricks on Nancy and loves her fiercely.
- Frank MusgraveA handsome, easily offended young neighbor from the abbey, who befriends Nancy in Dresden and wants more than she knows.
- Mrs. HuntleyA graceful, soft-spoken woman with an absent husband, who charms the men around her and unsettles Nancy.
- The BratNancy's small, cheeky brother, who looks like her, jokes solemnly and is at Oxford.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 14 h 44 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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25 languages, side by side
Read and hear Nancy in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Nancy
by Rhoda Broughton · 1873
A plain girl of nineteen marries her father's old school friend, Sir Roger, to rescue her five noisy siblings.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Six children and a visiting general
The story begins in the Grey family schoolroom, where six children are cooking taffy from a greasy recipe book. Nancy reads the recipe aloud while Barbara stirs, Algy grates a lemon and Bobby butters the soup plates. The Brat peels almonds, and young Tou Tou, who is twelve and all legs and ears, sits on the table and watches.
Their mother comes in with a message from their father, who wants them quiet because Sir Roger Tempest is arriving. The children decide he is a poor old Indian bore who went to school with Father. The Brat reads a newspaper tale about a man who helped an old woman with a train window and received a fortune, and the family begins to hope for a benefactor.
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What is Nancy by Rhoda Broughton about?
It follows a nineteen-year-old girl from a large country family who marries her father's old friend, Sir Roger Tempest, to help her brothers and sisters. The story traces how her marriage, her jealousy and one lie change her.
Who is Sir Roger Tempest in Nancy?
He is a general of forty-seven, home from India, who comes to stay with the Grey family and becomes Nancy's friend. He is kind, honest and gentle, and he falls in love with her.
Why is the heroine called Nancy and what are the sweet Nancies?
Nancy is the heroine's own name, and the sweet Nancies are flowers that grow in her garden. She wears a wreath of them on her wedding day, so they stand for her girlhood and home.
The author
Rhoda Broughton
1840–1920 · Welsh novelist
Rhoda Broughton (1840–1920) was a Welsh novelist born in Denbigh, Wales. She lived in Oxford and later in Headington, where she died. Her first novels appeared in 1867. She wrote Nancy, published in 1873, and Doctor Cupid, published in 1886. She continued publishing novels into the twentieth century.
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