George Sand

by Elizabeth Harlan

George Sand was the most famous—and most scandalous—woman in nineteenth-century France. As a writer, she was enormously prolific—she wrote more than ninety novels, thirty-five plays, and thousands of pages of autobiography. She inspired writers as diverse as Flaubert and Proust but is often remembered for her love affairs with such figures as Musset and Chopin. Her affair with Chopin is the most their nine-year relationship ended in 1847 when Sand began to suspect that the composer had fallen in love with her daughter, Solange. Drawing on archival sources—much of it neglected by Sand’s previous biographers—Elizabeth Harlan examines the intertwined issues of maternity and identity that haunt Sand’s writing and defined her life. Why was Sand’s relationship with her daughter so fraught? Why was a woman so famous for her personal and literary audacity ultimately so conflicted about women’s liberation? In an effort to solve the riddle of Sand’s identity, Harlan examines a latticework of lives that include Solange, Sand’s mother and grandmother, and Sand’s own protagonists, whose stories amplify her own.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2004

Reviews

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Sand by Elizabeth Harlan really got me thinking about women's freedoms: freedom to be themselves, to go after their dreams, to live how they want to live.
Ms. Harlan gives us a very candid look at one the foremost writers of the nineteenth century. You obtain a glimpse into George Sand the writer and the woman, how her life began and the progression of the events in her life that affected how she made decisions. And how she made her decisions as a writer and a woman. Being a woman and a writer was so intertwined in her life , the constant struggle to be free to live how she wanted to live her life; it was amazing. You read her story as if you are on the sidelines rooting for her not necessarily because you agree with every decision she made but you know that she is paving the way for the rest of us.
Anyone who has a love of history and likes to read about writers and enjoys a good biography will really enjoy this book.

[Leslie Zemeckis]

Loved this book if not ultimately the subject - a prolific writer, thinker and woman ahead of her time - I couldn’t help but judge her for the ill treatment of her daughter, manipulations of family and lovers and her turning against women uniting together when she had a chance to be at the forefront of that movement
A very good book nonetheless

[Hannah Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent, well written bio on a remarkable pioneering woman.