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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In a world of careful manners, what happens when the heart refuses to go where anyone sends it?
Doctor Cupid by Rhoda Broughton takes you into Victorian drawing rooms and country houses, where polite behavior keeps strong feelings just beneath the surface. Love meets the rules of society at dinners, dances and country visits. What people hope for and what their hearts choose are not always the same.
Broughton explores love and rivalry with a sharp eye and a dry sense of humor. The title hints at matchmaking and meddling, but affection resists easy direction. Quick sentences, lively dialogue and an amused narrator bring warmth to a world where manners shape every encounter and feelings refuse to stay simple.
What you’ll discover
- Feelings beneath the manners Look beneath polite behavior to find the strong emotions it keeps out of sight.
- Love beyond anyone's plans Explore the gap between where people direct affection and where it chooses to go.
- Rivalry with a smile Discover how competing hopes give this romance its tension and its dry humor.
- A sharp, warm voice Enjoy lively dialogue and a narrator whose amused eye stays close to the heart.
- The drawing-room world Step into country houses where social rules shape meetings and love complicates careful manners.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Victorian comedies of manners, village gossip, gardens and animals, and love stories driven by sharp dialogue will feel at home here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Laughter unsettles a firm judgment
- Peggy carries the household's weight
- A kindness changes Peggy's view
- Ordinary work makes room for trust
- Freddy's charm puts Prue at risk
- An old obligation threatens new trust
- Waiting exposes the cost of promises
- Love gives without keeping accounts
- Charm needs the courage to care
Who’s who
- Peggy LambtonThe strong, practical elder sister who runs the Red House and its garden, guards Prue fiercely and trusts very few people.
- Prue LambtonPeggy's frail seventeen-year-old sister, who gives all her heart to Freddy Ducane and will not hear a word against him.
- John TalbotA thoughtful Foreign Office secretary and countryman at heart, tired of his long tie to Lady Betty and drawn to Peggy.
- Lady Betty HarboroughA rouged, witty duke's daughter who sings daring songs and clings to Talbot, yet adores her little son.
- Freddy DucaneLady Roupell's charming nephew, who says whatever pleases each listener and cannot refuse anyone anything.
- Lady RoupellCalled milady, the blunt, kind owner of the Manor, who digs in a frieze coat and gives advice with a shrug.
- Mrs. EvansThe vicar's gossiping wife, who wears her dyed wedding dress to every grand dinner and always has a remedy.
- Lily and Franky HarboroughLady Betty's young children, who say aloud what the grown people hide and adore John Talbot and Peggy.
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Doctor Cupid in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Doctor Cupid
by Rhoda Broughton · 1886
A proud gardener and a man tied to another woman meet over a dinner of venison.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
Learn a language with medium classicsSpanishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseEnglishHow we measure levels
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“Great love keeps no ledger of debts and credits; it gives lavishly, asking nothing in return.”
In short
Picture a dinner where a proud young woman decides in advance to be rude to the man beside her. Peggy Lambton has heard the gossip about John Talbot, and she answers his polite questions in single words.
Doctor Cupid at a glance
- Reading time
- About 8 h6 h 20 min fast, 9 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 114,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1886by Rhoda Broughton
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two sisters live beside the Big House
The story opens in a small red house just outside the park of a great one. Peggy Lambton and her younger sister Prue add up on a slate what the Big House owes them and what they owe it. The list is a joke, full of dance music, sick dogs, borrowed bores and workhouse teas.
Peggy is twenty-two and carries the weight of everything. She runs the garden, feeds a parrot, a cat, a shaggy dog and a tame fox, and visits the poor of the parish. Prue is seventeen, thin and delicate, and Peggy has looked after her since their mother died.
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Details
- First published
- 1886
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Broughton, Rhoda. Doctor Cupid. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/doctor-cupid.
Broughton, R. (2026). Doctor Cupid. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/doctor-cupid (Original work published 1886)
Broughton, Rhoda. Doctor Cupid. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/doctor-cupid.
@book{broughton2026doctor,
author = {Broughton, Rhoda},
title = {Doctor Cupid},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/doctor-cupid},
note = {First published 1886}
}
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What is Doctor Cupid about?
It follows two sisters, Peggy and Prue Lambton, in an English village near a grand estate. Peggy meets John Talbot, a man tied to Lady Betty, while Prue loves the charming Freddy Ducane. The book weighs love, loyalty and self-sacrifice with plenty of humor.
Who is John Talbot in Doctor Cupid?
He is a thirty-two-year-old secretary at the Foreign Office who has spent five years as the devoted companion of Lady Betty Harborough. He loves the countryside, children and gardens, and gradually falls in love with Peggy Lambton.
Why is the novel called Doctor Cupid?
The title comes from a line by Sir Philip Sidney printed at the start, asking Doctor Cupid, the god of love, to answer for the speaker. The story shows how love can cure or harm, and how little it answers.
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.
“Great love keeps no ledger of debts and credits; it gives lavishly, asking nothing in return.”
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