British poet Fiona Sampson’s bio “Becoming George,” as in Sand, born Aurore Dupin de Franceuil (later Dudevant) born into a family of modest means and tragic situations. Aurore proved not only resilient, and by her mid-20s she emerged as a visionary feminist with a literary cause who defied 19th century French mores from the streets of Paris to courtroom and ballrooms.
Sand was known for her bespoke statement male attire, from hats to boots, often with a floral scarf to spice it up. She used the pen name George as a way of shattering the era’s publishing glass ceiling, keenly aware that women writers had a slim chance of getting their work in print.
In 1832-33, in her 20s Sand published three successful novels Indiana and Valentine and the wildly popular Lelia. Over the decades she published 80 novels, wrote plays, journals and a memoir.
Sand’s life was full of family drama, controversy, Versailles connections, Paris gossip, and mutual respect with artists, musicians and writers in France and abroad.
Her childhood was anything but easy, her parents were separated,
her mother socially outcast for being an actress, raising a child from a previous marriage when she married Maurice Dupin de Francueil a military officer with social standing. Her fraternal grandmother was heir to Nohant, a country estate outside of Paris.
Her father died when she was just four, her parents grieving at the loss of a newborn. He was riding on road that he knew near Nohant and didn’t see rubble in the path when his horse stumbled on rocks and reared throwing him and he died of multiple injuries including a broken neck. Aurore was then separated from her mother and under the stern custody of her grandmother at Nohant, the country estate 40 miles outside of Paris.
Her mother was paid to stay away because of her reputation. With all of this family misfortune, and under the cold control of her grandmother.
Aurore possessed an independent spirit and quiet intelligence. Aurore did what was told. but when she got older she was more rebellious so her grandmother sent her to a French boarding school run by English Nuns.
Surprisingly, it was a blessing in disguise as Aurore was mentored by Mother Mary Alicia Spiring, who encouraged Aurore creative spirit so much so that she was not only a good student, learning languages and experiencing sincere friendships with other girls. By her mid-teens Aurore was writing plays that were performed at the school.
Everything changed when her grandmother suffered a stroke and Sand returned to Nohant and at 17, Aurore became her caregiver for the last year of her life. Her half-brother Hippolyte, a cadet would also stay at the estate and they formed a strong sibling bond that lasted throughout their lives.
Sand’s dealt with the pressures by riding her horse every morning.
When her grandmother died, Aurore inherited the Nohant estate. Sand married Casimir Dudevant just months later.
The first year of marriage was emotionally joyous, financially problematic, and tension building between relatives and social status, becoming distant from each other for different reasons, and both having other romantic affairs. They had a typical mutual arrangement’ but love was still present, however strained.
Sand started spending more and more time to in the bohemian literary and art world in Paris. Writing nonstop- letters, journals and soon enough novels.
Her personal life is both a shambles ending in bitter financial standoff with Casimir who by French law has proprietary control over her assets, and in fact had not made good on the divorce settlement payments to her.
The marriage ended in divorce and under French law, Casimir now owned Nohant. And their relationship broke down to the point that Casimir also took custody of the children, a situation that caused Sand much. Sand sued for the estate and won.
Her time with her children remained sporadic because of her career and her personal life. But they were reunited for long stretches. One reunion was with an apartment she had in Paris were there when there was a cholera outbreak, and but they managed to return safely to Nohant.
Through all of the turmoil, nothing slowed Sand down, she was a workaday writer and continued to publish and expand her career.
Sampson details Sand’s other relationships including her complicated decade long affair with Fryderyk Chopin, colleague Gustave Flaubert, artist Eugene Delacroix, and flirtations with a number of much younger men in the arts being very generous with money and even providing safe harbor for artists at Nohant.
Even though Sand and Chopin maintained an open relationship for nearly a decade. Chopin’s health continued to decline and his care became too overwhelming for Sand and she reluctantly ended their relationship, but continued to support him financially.
Still reeling from reconstruction after the Napoleonic wars and hostilities to the aristocracy, women were still oppressed in countless ways, a central theme of many of Sand’s novels.
Meanwhile, France was much less puritanic about sex between consenting adults and even decriminalized same-sex relationship in 1791 under the Napoleonic Code.
Sampson is granular research on Sand’s French lineage connections alone is at times overly tangential, but past that Sampson is the consummate historian, and this edition is a fascinating, immersive read. Becoming George is the last of a trilogy along with Sampson’s bios of Mary Shelley and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
