32 Facts About George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist.

One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honore de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era, with more than 50 volumes of various works to her credit, including tales, plays and political texts, alongside her 70 novels.

Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, the future George Sand, was born on 1 July 1804 in Paris on Meslay Street to Maurice Dupin de Francueil and Sophie-Victoire Delaborde.

George Sand was the paternal great-granddaughter of the Marshal of France Maurice de Saxe, and on her mother's side, her grandfather was Antoine Delaborde, master paulmier and master birder.

George Sand was raised for much of her childhood by her grandmother Marie-Aurore de Saxe, Madame Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Francueil, at her grandmother's house in the village of Nohant, in the French province of Berry.

George Sand inherited the house in 1821 when her grandmother died, and used the setting in many of her novels.

George Sand was one of many notable 19th-century women who chose to wear male attire in public.

George Sand was one of those women who wore men's clothing without a permit, justifying it as being less expensive and far sturdier than the typical dress of a noblewoman at the time.

In 1822, at the age of eighteen, George Sand married Casimir Dudevant, an out-of-wedlock son of Baron Jean-Francois Dudevant.

George Sand engaged in an intimate romantic relationship with actress Marie Dorval.

George Sand wrote about Dorval, including many passages where she is described as smitten with Dorval.

George Sand had never been taught anything, but there was nothing she did not know by instinct.

Theater critic Gustave Planche reportedly warned George Sand to stay away from Dorval.

In 1840, Dorval played the lead in a play written by George Sand, titled Cosima, and the two women collaborated on the script.

George Sand is cared for by a middle-aged actress past her prime, Lucrezia, who suffers greatly through her affection for Karol.

George Sand took Chopin's support of Solange to be extremely disloyal, and confirmation that Chopin had always "loved" Solange.

Maurice removed two sentences from a letter George Sand wrote to Chopin when he published it because he felt that George Sand was too affectionate toward Chopin and Solange.

Chopin and George Sand separated two years before his death for a variety of reasons.

George Sand fell passionately in love with Manceau, he became her lover, companion and secretary and they stayed together for fifteen years until his death.

George Sand had no choice but to write for the theater because of financial difficulties.

In 1864, George Sand took residence in Palaiseau together with her beloved Manceau for a couple of months, where she tended him in his decline.

George Sand died at Nohant, near Chateauroux, in France's Indre departement on 8 June 1876, at the age of 71.

George Sand was buried in the private graveyard behind the chapel at Nohant-Vic.

George Sand often performed her theatrical works in her small private theatre at the Nohant estate.

George Sand started her own newspaper, published in a workers' co-operative.

George Sand was a member of the provisional government of 1848, issuing a series of fiery manifestos.

George Sand was known for her implication and writings during the Paris Commune of 1871, where she took a position for the Versailles assembly against the communards, urging them to take violent action against the rebels.

George Sand's writing was immensely popular during her lifetime and she was highly respected by the literary and cultural elite in France.

Fyodor Dostoevsky "read widely in the numerous novels of George Sand" and translated her La derniere Aldini in 1844, only to learn that it had already been published in Russian.

Critics have noted structural and thematic similarities between George Sand's Indiana, published in 1832, and Gomez de Avellaneda's anti-slavery novel Sab, published in 1841.

George Sand makes an appearance in Isabel Allende's Zorro, going still by her given name, as a young girl in love with Diego de la Vega.

George Sand is portrayed by Merle Oberon in A Song to Remember, by Patricia Morison in Song Without End, by Rosemary Harris in Notorious Woman, by Judy Davis in James Lapine's 1991 British-American film Impromptu; and by Juliette Binoche in the 1999 French film Children of the Century.