George Sand: A Brave Man, The Most Womanly Woman

by Donna Dickenson

George Sand was admired by Dostoevsky, Whitman, Flaubert, Thackeray and Elizabeth Barret Browning as on of the greatest writers of her time. Her sixty novels received critical acclaim and earned her enough money to donate over a million pounds to socialist causes. But now she is remembered mainly as a 'femme fatale' who wore trousers, smoked cigars and lived with Chopin, among other well-known men. In this critical introduction to Sand's works, Dickenson pulls together all the myths about her and vigorously challenges them, offering fresh insights into Sand's writings, sexuality and the complex relationship between these two spheres of her life.

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This study, while quite dated in that the author fights a battle on behalf of Sand's rightful place as a 19th C French writer that has since been won (Sand's place is fairly secure and recognized by now), nonetheless offers the reader a) a vision of the distance we have come, b) strong arguments for a feminist reading of Sand, c) thorough rebuttal to scurrilous attacks on Sand, and d) a set of fundamental references to Sand's works and criticism that may have been superseded by many more recent works in the Sand industry. Frankly, I cannot pretend to have finished reading this work since I will return to it again and again as a fundamental reference.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I put this book down halfway through it. I felt as though I were reading a PhD dissertation. Nothing in the book kept me engrossed to the point I couldn't put it down.