George Sand

“Martine Reid’s life of Sand is a miracle of concision and evenhandedness.”

—Benita Eisler The Wall Street Journal

“Highly recommended for George Sand devotees, but the audience for this masterly and definitive biography should be legion.”

—starred review Library Journal

“This biography offers an excellent point of entry into Sand’s life and thought, encouraging reevaluation of a famed but perhaps underrated author who felt ‘for humanity . . . because they are me.’”

—Publishers Weekly

“Patiently illustrates the author’s paradoxes in a work intended for the non-specialist reader. . . . Reid’s writing is level-headed and concise, showing Sand’s engagement with contemporary issues and the way these interests found their way into her writing.”

—The Economist

“This exciting, intelligent, and informative biography does not dwell solely on Sand’s romantic escapades (though it does do them justice) nor finds it necessary to insist that she was a great writer (which she was); the author takes that as a matter of course. Instead, Reid treats Sand as a worthy biographer should treat a great author, while pointing out the obstacles Sand faced as a woman writer in a repressive century.”

—Kathleen R. Hart, author of Revolution and Women's Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century France

“A solid contribution to Sand studies, providing a clear, accessible, well-documented introduction to Sand’s life and works for the uninitiated and a good review for the knowledgeable.”

—Choice

“Endowed with an impressive lightness of touch and remarkable concision, Reid’s biography is clearly meant to be accessible to a non-specialist readership. In this, however, the book sacrifices none of its scholarliness.”

—Claire White H-France

“This exciting, intelligent, impeccably researched, well-written (and equally well-translated) book is sure to renew the interest of Sand specialists and to attract curious general readers.”

—S. Pascale Dewey Women in French Studies