A Woman's Life Writ Large
"George Sand" (Aurore Dupin 1804 - 1976) was France's best-selling writer, rivalled in her time only by Victor Hugo. Yet she was known as much for her excessive life as for her plays, stories, and enduring novels like 'Indiana', 'Lelia' and 'Mauprat'.
Sand was at the centre of French intellectual and artistic life. The daughter of a prostitute and an aristocrat, she grew up acutely aware of social injustice and prejudice. Sand believed in the equality of the sexes, and thought marriage was "a barbarous institution". Convent-educated, she became a mischievous, flamboyant rebel: her long, troubled romance with Chopin was just one of the many affairs with well-known figures, but her most desperate love was for a beautiful actress.
No one quite matches George Sand - she remains unique, powerful, vital and mysterious. In this rich new biography Belinda Jack gives the full flavour of her personality and delves beneath the surface of Sand's life and her age, to show how her art both reflected and shaped her life.
