George Sand (1804–1876)
Author of The Devil’s Pool
About the Author
George Sand began life as Aurore Dupin, the daughter of a count and a dressmaker. Educated both on her aristocratic grandmother's estate and in a Parisian convent, at 18 she married Casimer Dudevant, a provincial gentleman whose rough temperament was the opposite of her own, and from whom she show more obtained a separation several years later. At 31 she moved to Paris, where she changed her name and plunged into the bohemian world of French romanticism. Frequently dressed in men's clothing, she participated actively in literary debates, cultural events, and even the revolution of 1848. Sand was friend and correspondent with many of the major artists and writers of her age, including Balzac, Flaubert, and Liszt. Her love affairs with the poet Musset and the composer Chopin were the stuff of legend, chronicled in her own Story of My Life. Sand's immensely popular novels ranged from sentimental stories of wronged women, to utopian socialist fictions, such as her masterpiece in Consuelo, 1842, to explorations of pastoral themes written when she retired, late in life, to her estate in Berry. Though frequently dismissed as overblown or too sentimental, Sand's fiction has recently undergone a revaluation, emerging as an influential body of women's writing. As both a writer and an intellectual personality, Sand is a central figure in nineteenth-century French cultural life. George Sand died in 1876 (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by George Sand
The Castle of Pictures: A Grandmother's Tales, Volume One (Castle of Pictures & Other Stories) (1994) 48 copies, 2 reviews
My Convent Life: From L'Histoire de Ma Vie, with a new chronology of her life and work (1854) 20 copies
Le Diable à Paris : Paris et les parisiens : moeurs et coutumes, caractères et portraits des habitants de Paris : tabl (2010) 7 copies
Rakas vanha trubaduuri : George Sandin ja Gustave Flaubertin kirjeenvaihtoa vuosilta 1863-1876 (2007) 5 copies
Lei e lui: Paolina: Lavinia 4 copies
Romances Campestres 4 copies
En have for sig 3 copies
פרנסואה העזובי 3 copies
La famille de Germandre 3 copies
La comtesse de rudolstadt t.2 2 copies
George Sand an Alfred de Musset 2 copies
La comtesse de Rudolstadt 2 copies
El marqués de Villemer 2 copies
Cô bé Fadette 2 copies
La petite fadette I 2 copies
La petite fadette II 2 copies
Графиня Рудольштадт 2 copies
Los caballeros de Bois-Doré. Tomo I 2 copies
ばらいろの雲 2 copies
Wędrowny czeladnik 2 copies
Consuelo, vol. 1 2 copies
" Mopra". "Oras". 2 copies
THE SIN OF MONSIEUR ANTOINE, and LEONE LEONI, Vol I and Vol. II The Masterpieces of George Sand (1901) 2 copies
Convent Life 1 copy
Leoni Leone ; Mi secretario 1 copy
Lettre d'un voyageur 1 copy
La Comtesse de Rudolstadt I 1 copy
Индиана 1 copy
La mare au diable - Niveau 1/A1 - Lecture CLE en Francais Facile - Livre - 600 mots (French Edition) (2017) 1 copy
Les Deux frères 1 copy
La Coupe 1 copy
THERESE İLE LAURENT 1 copy
L'ultimo amore: romanzo 1 copy
Los caballeros del bosque 1 copy
Un hiver au midi de l'Europe 1 copy
Consuelo I-II 1 copy
Мопра Индиана 1 copy
Консуело I 1 copy
Консуело II 1 copy
פרנסואה העזובי 1 copy
Puri Pictordu 1 copy
HAYATIM 1 copy
Consuelo II.kötet 1 copy
Consuelo I.kötet 1 copy
Ostatnia miłość 1 copy
Consuelo - II 1 copy
La mare au diable (extraits), avec une notice biographique une notice histori [Texte imprimé] : extraits (1991) 1 copy
At have en have 1 copy
Валентина 1 copy
Lanetli Göl 1 copy
The Greatest Novels of George Sand: Indiana, Mauprat, The Countess of Rudolstadt, Valentine, Leone Leoni, Antonia… (2022) 1 copy
SST 41 - Nanon 1 copy
SST 44 - Indiana 1 copy
La Cora 1 copy
HLo Istagno del diavolo 1 copy
The Countess of Rudolstadtt 1 copy
Aldo le rimeur 1 copy
Pauline, suivi de Metella 1 copy
Histoire de ma vie Tome 4 1 copy
La Fée poussière 1 copy
A nuvem cor de rosa 1 copy
Wings of Courage — Original Story — 1 copy
Le Monde des Papillons 1 copy
Konsuėlo roman 1 1 copy
Œuvres autobiographiques II 1 copy
Ein Buch der Leidenschaft 1 copy
Sobor' Parizhskoi Bogomateri 1 copy
Mlle. Merquem 1 copy
Dagbogsblade 1 copy
George Sand vallomásai 1 copy
THE PICCININO; THE LAST OF THE ALDINIS, Historic and Romantic Novels by Amadine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, Volume VIII (1901) 1 copy, 1 review
La marchesa 1 copy
Lettres 1 copy
Mi hermana Juana 1 copy
Le Château de Pictordu: La Reine Coax, le Nuage Rose, les Ailes de Courage, le Géant Yéous (Classic Reprint) (French Edition) (2017) 1 copy
Rosa e Brezza 1 copy
Little Fadette 1 copy
A Pequena Ivete Livro 1 1 copy
The Shadow And The Substance 1 copy
Dodecaton, ou le livre des douze — Author — 1 copy
Les Don Juan de village 1 copy
Eseje 1 copy
Ostatnia z Aldinich. T. 1 1 copy
Ostatnia z Aldinich. T. 2 1 copy
Dzieje mojego życia 1 copy
Konsuėlo roman 2 1 copy
Correspondance 1: 1812-1831 1 copy
Fiche de lecture Indiana de George Sand (Analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (2018) 1 copy
Dvě lásky mladého Horáce 1 copy
Las lavanderas nocturnas 1 copy
My Convent Life -- Translated from "Histoire de ma Vie" By Maria Ellery McKay, with a New Chronology of Her Life and Work (1978) 1 copy
Lavinia - Pauline - Kora: Die Geschichten dreier außergewöhnlicher Frauen (German Edition) (2017) 1 copy
פדט הקטנה 1 copy
Romans Champêtres 1 copy
Associated Works
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 622 copies, 9 reviews
Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History (2002) — Contributor — 367 copies, 2 reviews
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From "Kubla Khan" to the Brontë Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray (2012) — Contributor — 213 copies, 2 reviews
La dimension fantastique, Tome 1 : Treize nouvelles de Hoffmann à Claude Seignolle (1998) — Contributor — 80 copies, 2 reviews
Creatures of Another Age: Classic Visions of Prehistoric Monsters (2021) — Contributor — 15 copies, 1 review
L'Oeuvre de Balzac, Tome 09 : La comédie Humaine, Etudes de Mœurs au XIXe siècle (1962) — Preface, some editions — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Dupin, Amantine Aurore Lucile
- Other names
- Baroness Dudevant
- Birthdate
- 1804-07-01
- Date of death
- 1876-06-08
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Couvent des Dames augustines anglaises
- Occupations
- novelist
playwright - Relationships
- Chopin, Frederic (lover)
Musset, Alfred de (lover)
Königsmarck, Aurora von (great-great-grandmother)
Madame Dupin (step-great-grandmother) - Short biography
- George Sand, the pen name of Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, was raised by her paternal grandmother, Marie Aurore de Saxe, and educated partly at a convent. In 1822, at the age of 18, she married Baron Casimir Dudevant, with whom she had two children. In 1831, she left her husband and went to Paris, where she wore male attire, smoked in public, and adopted a male pseudonym, among her other gender-defying activities. She had a nearly 10-year love affair with Frédéric Chopin. She became one of the most popular writers in Europe in her own lifetime, and is recognized today as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era.
- Cause of death
- Intestinal cancer
- Nationality
- France
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
Nohant, near Châteauroux, France
Majorca
Madrid, Spain - Place of death
- Nohant, near Châteauroux, France
- Burial location
- grounds of her home, Nohant, near Châteauroux, France
- Map Location
- France
Members
Reviews
I saved my copy of ‘Valentine’ for quite some time, because I was sure from the start that it would be special, that it was a book to save for exactly the right moment. And when I read ‘Valentine’ I realised that I had been right, that I was reading a classic work by the finest of authors.
I was transported to rural France, I was captivated by the story, the romance, by everything that the author had to tell me …. I was torn between wanting to rush through the pages and wanting to show more linger, to in this world, in this story, for as long as I could.
‘Valentine’ tells the story of the love between Valentine de Raimbault, the daughter of the chateau, and Bénédict Lhéry, the nephew of one of its tenant farmers. When they met they feel in love, swiftly and deeply. That love was tangible, the characters lived and breathed, their whole world came to life. It was wonderful, but it was impossible.
“He could not take his eyes from Valentine’s; whether he leaned over the bank or ventured on to the loose stones or on to the smooth and slippery pebbles in the river-bed he inevitably met Valentine’s glance, watching him, brooding over him, so to speak, with tender solicitude. Valentine did not know how to dissemble; she did not consider on that occasion there was the slightest occasion for her to do so.”
Benedict had been brought up by his aunt and uncle, and it was understood that he would marry their adored – but spoiled – only child, Athénaïs.
Valentine’s sister, Louise, had been cast off by her family when a love affair produced a son out of wedlock, and that left Valentine to marry well. A marriage had been arranged with a man of high rank; but a man who was dissolute and in need of the fortune that Valentine would bring to pay his gambling debts.
It was impossible, but the bond between them was unbreakable.
The story rises and falls because Valentine and Benedict have different temperaments. One is reluctant to cause hurt and tries to follow the path that was planned for them, and one is ready to do anything for the two to be together.
And of course their are other influences. A spouse who will not be undermined. A lover sore after rejection. A loving sister, whose own feelings and interest may conflict with sisterly love ….
George Sand constructed and managed her plot beautifully, attending to every single detail;she brought the countryside to life with wonderfully rich descriptions; and she made her characters’ feelings palpable.
She gave me a wonderful story, full of wonderful drama, and so many real emotions.
And it was a story with much to say, about the separation of social classes, about the lack of education and opportunity for women of any class.
“Every day, in the name of God and society, some clown or some dastard obtains the hand of an unfortunate girl, who is forced by her parents, her good name or her poverty to stifle in her heart a pure and sanctified love. And before the eyes of society, which approves and sanctions the outrage, the modest, trembling woman, who has been unable to resist the transports of her lover, falls dishonoured beneath the kisses of a detested master! and this must go on!”
There is so much depth, so much richness in the characters, in the relationships, in the way that story plays out, but I am wary of saying too much.
I have to believe that George Sand was an author who put her head her heart and her soul into her work. And now, of course, I want to read everything that she ever wrote.
It’s difficult to place her ….
…. imagine Thomas Hardy, transformed as Virginia Woolf transformed Orlando, sitting down to rewrite Romeo and Juliet and drawing inspiration from Shakespeare’s other works too ….
I can’t quite explain.
I just know that I loved this book.
(Translated by George Burnham Ives) show less
I was transported to rural France, I was captivated by the story, the romance, by everything that the author had to tell me …. I was torn between wanting to rush through the pages and wanting to show more linger, to in this world, in this story, for as long as I could.
‘Valentine’ tells the story of the love between Valentine de Raimbault, the daughter of the chateau, and Bénédict Lhéry, the nephew of one of its tenant farmers. When they met they feel in love, swiftly and deeply. That love was tangible, the characters lived and breathed, their whole world came to life. It was wonderful, but it was impossible.
“He could not take his eyes from Valentine’s; whether he leaned over the bank or ventured on to the loose stones or on to the smooth and slippery pebbles in the river-bed he inevitably met Valentine’s glance, watching him, brooding over him, so to speak, with tender solicitude. Valentine did not know how to dissemble; she did not consider on that occasion there was the slightest occasion for her to do so.”
Benedict had been brought up by his aunt and uncle, and it was understood that he would marry their adored – but spoiled – only child, Athénaïs.
Valentine’s sister, Louise, had been cast off by her family when a love affair produced a son out of wedlock, and that left Valentine to marry well. A marriage had been arranged with a man of high rank; but a man who was dissolute and in need of the fortune that Valentine would bring to pay his gambling debts.
It was impossible, but the bond between them was unbreakable.
The story rises and falls because Valentine and Benedict have different temperaments. One is reluctant to cause hurt and tries to follow the path that was planned for them, and one is ready to do anything for the two to be together.
And of course their are other influences. A spouse who will not be undermined. A lover sore after rejection. A loving sister, whose own feelings and interest may conflict with sisterly love ….
George Sand constructed and managed her plot beautifully, attending to every single detail;she brought the countryside to life with wonderfully rich descriptions; and she made her characters’ feelings palpable.
She gave me a wonderful story, full of wonderful drama, and so many real emotions.
And it was a story with much to say, about the separation of social classes, about the lack of education and opportunity for women of any class.
“Every day, in the name of God and society, some clown or some dastard obtains the hand of an unfortunate girl, who is forced by her parents, her good name or her poverty to stifle in her heart a pure and sanctified love. And before the eyes of society, which approves and sanctions the outrage, the modest, trembling woman, who has been unable to resist the transports of her lover, falls dishonoured beneath the kisses of a detested master! and this must go on!”
There is so much depth, so much richness in the characters, in the relationships, in the way that story plays out, but I am wary of saying too much.
I have to believe that George Sand was an author who put her head her heart and her soul into her work. And now, of course, I want to read everything that she ever wrote.
It’s difficult to place her ….
…. imagine Thomas Hardy, transformed as Virginia Woolf transformed Orlando, sitting down to rewrite Romeo and Juliet and drawing inspiration from Shakespeare’s other works too ….
I can’t quite explain.
I just know that I loved this book.
(Translated by George Burnham Ives) show less
A short book set in the French region of Berry in the 1840s, where the young widower Germain sets out on a trip to find a new wife but realises that the ideal person for him may have been much closer to home all along. I think that George Sand's novella—with its insistence on the validity of the emotional lives of the peasantry and its well-observed child characters and social details—likely read as much more progressive and even subversive in the France of the July Monarchy period than show more it does today. Today, the authorial voice which bookends the novella reads as patronising: Sand's peasants, honest people of the soil, may feel more intensely and purely than their social betters, but Sand tells us that they cannot think. Hrm. show less
I have been reading two Victorian novels simultaneously, which is weirdly lonely, so many heavily felt and ponderously expressed sentiments so foreign to my own, all at once. Of the two, Indiana is not my favourite: the overpowering concern with convention bedraggles the proceedings--not only the romantic-marital-sexual conventions that tear lives apart, but also the unconventional adherence to convention that Sand ultimately approves of and adheres to--she's all for histrionics, for sad show more lovers loyal unto death and finding everythingineachother'seyes in that nineteenth-century codependent Jane Eyre way, it seems; what she's against is actually playas, and what she's for, a mildly cartoonishly tragical version of True Wuv, and in that sense although she no doubt wore trousers and smoked cigars and was an important bohemian feminist, and deserves her vanguard-luminary status in that sense, her view of relationships between men and women--that of the young Sand who wrote this at least--actually comes across as deeply conservative in terms of her view of love while also being advanced in terms of her insistence that women be let govern themselves and highly moral from that perspective. The little character insights are as good as many of her contemporaries but not as good as the best (people undergo conversions this way and that at the behest of the plot), and so what you're left with is a sad story of a destructive love affair whose ruling humours (the need for utmost total unreal devotion, the need for a man to have mistresses, great-man-of-history worship, the the choice of suicide in this bad old world even over life into which a new hope has just come because you're just so tired, and the representation of this choice as highly moral) have become largely historical ones. I felt sad for Indiana, but also like this is maybe more a book for young nineteenth-century women married off to cranky old colonels who deal with it by many obscure psychosomatic ailments (to be fair, women couldn't own property, etc., so she couldn't leave, and what other comeback did she have?) and who find the idea of a lovers' suicide pact irresistibly romantic and who would love to go to pieces emotionally and be directed from there as long as their lover-director is ardent and devoted and not cranky like their husband or flighty like the other romantic rival and early favourite. I don't want to be unsympathetic to Indiana but this novel does mostly leave me with the sense that everybody back then was doing a piss-poor fucking job (a service in itself, important in its day, etc.!). show less
This novella, bought in Sherbrooke, Quebec last week, at the grand Biblairie GGC, is better than the Victor Hugo short story I bought there six années fa—more subtle analysis of the provincial woman who becomes a star actress, Laurence, and her childhood friend Pauline reacquainted decades later, as well as perhaps the coldest Man of (Dis)Honor I have ever read, Montgenays. Who would believe, in a man apparently so “nonchalant en apparance,” “une résolution si sèche et si show more cruelle?” (85).
Many historical details bring the past alive, like women forbidden to ride horses in many French towns. The first young woman who rode “une selle anglaise” was treated as if she were a Cossack in petticoats, then the next year all the young women wore Amazonian attire, including the riding crop (62).
The French provincial attitude toward theater turns out to reflect Puritan disdain, or perhaps it’s more bourgeois sanctimoniousness, acting as bohemian. But once Laurence returns famous, everyone lies about rejecting her. Now they say they had often entertained the now-famous actress, and they all recognized that Laurence would go far. Sand calls these false recollections, “toutes ces puerilités”(63).
Pauline’s life achieved meaning by her duties toward her ailing mother, Madame D.
But Sand clarifies the daughter has not a trace of self-abnegation. Rather, she is proud, prouder than her actress friend, though her limited and dutiful life does not display it. Upon the death of Pauline’s mother, Laurence is forced to conclude “que l’exercice de certaines vertus paralyse l’âme des femmes, au lieu de la fortifier”(64).
Meanwhile, Montgenays’ conversation was seen by artists as good in comparison to other rich guys, and he was accepted by the proud because he knew how to flatter them. In short, he was what the world calls “un homme d’esprit,” or what artists and playwrights call “un homme de goût”(77).
Laurence’s mother, Madame S, also lives with her daughter, and in fact, has greater
insight into both Pauline and Montgenays. She suggests her daughter find out if Montgenays really loves Pauline, “les separer; ferme-lui ta porte: ce sera le forcer à se déclarer”(97). The actress urges Pauline to help her at the theater, but Pauline claims illness.
Finally, Laurence accepts her mother has been right, that Montgenays has been play-acting. This leads to my favorite lines, the actress saying, “nous verrons lequel de nous deux sait le mieux jouer la comédie.” Then, the her mom warns her, “Prends garde! Tu feras un ennemi mortel, et un enemi littéraire, qui plus est”(104).*
When she acts as if she’s captured by the creep, she acts less well, as if in a bad play. She adds she can’t believe that “la comédie fût plus fatigant à jouer dans le monde que sur les planches!”(106). Her old actor friend Lavallée convinces the creep, so she draws his letters toward herself, to let Pauline off the hook of a man who does not value her.
But Pauline feels the actress has stolen Montgenays, and continues jealous the rest of her life, although she triumphs in a way that may leave herself humiliated.
*Ah, an enemy who writes...I like to think I have been such an enemy, worse than a mortal enemy! show less
Many historical details bring the past alive, like women forbidden to ride horses in many French towns. The first young woman who rode “une selle anglaise” was treated as if she were a Cossack in petticoats, then the next year all the young women wore Amazonian attire, including the riding crop (62).
The French provincial attitude toward theater turns out to reflect Puritan disdain, or perhaps it’s more bourgeois sanctimoniousness, acting as bohemian. But once Laurence returns famous, everyone lies about rejecting her. Now they say they had often entertained the now-famous actress, and they all recognized that Laurence would go far. Sand calls these false recollections, “toutes ces puerilités”(63).
Pauline’s life achieved meaning by her duties toward her ailing mother, Madame D.
But Sand clarifies the daughter has not a trace of self-abnegation. Rather, she is proud, prouder than her actress friend, though her limited and dutiful life does not display it. Upon the death of Pauline’s mother, Laurence is forced to conclude “que l’exercice de certaines vertus paralyse l’âme des femmes, au lieu de la fortifier”(64).
Meanwhile, Montgenays’ conversation was seen by artists as good in comparison to other rich guys, and he was accepted by the proud because he knew how to flatter them. In short, he was what the world calls “un homme d’esprit,” or what artists and playwrights call “un homme de goût”(77).
Laurence’s mother, Madame S, also lives with her daughter, and in fact, has greater
insight into both Pauline and Montgenays. She suggests her daughter find out if Montgenays really loves Pauline, “les separer; ferme-lui ta porte: ce sera le forcer à se déclarer”(97). The actress urges Pauline to help her at the theater, but Pauline claims illness.
Finally, Laurence accepts her mother has been right, that Montgenays has been play-acting. This leads to my favorite lines, the actress saying, “nous verrons lequel de nous deux sait le mieux jouer la comédie.” Then, the her mom warns her, “Prends garde! Tu feras un ennemi mortel, et un enemi littéraire, qui plus est”(104).*
When she acts as if she’s captured by the creep, she acts less well, as if in a bad play. She adds she can’t believe that “la comédie fût plus fatigant à jouer dans le monde que sur les planches!”(106). Her old actor friend Lavallée convinces the creep, so she draws his letters toward herself, to let Pauline off the hook of a man who does not value her.
But Pauline feels the actress has stolen Montgenays, and continues jealous the rest of her life, although she triumphs in a way that may leave herself humiliated.
*Ah, an enemy who writes...I like to think I have been such an enemy, worse than a mortal enemy! show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 449
- Also by
- 23
- Members
- 6,412
- Popularity
- #3,838
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 117
- ISBNs
- 1,439
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- Favorited
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