Plt;bPgt;Cigar smoking, gender-nonconforming, bisexual, polyamorous - and the intellectual equal of any man - George Sand was the beating heart of the Paris literary scene. Award-winning Fiona Sampson MBE reassesses this uniquely modern figure.Plt;/bPgt; Born Aurore Dupin in 1804, by the time she was thirty she was internationally renowned as George Sand, her novels out-selling Victor Hugo in the English language. Soon, the legend of Sand herself - cigar-smoking, cross-dressing and promiscuous - scandalised Paris, seeming to break every rule set for women in polite society.Plt;BRPgt;Plt;BRPgt;What can we learn from the way she lived? Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy, or did her sexual and emotional relationships with the leading figures of her day - from Frederic Chopin to Gustave Flaubert - form part of her dialogue with the world, a dialogue intrinsic to writing itself?Plt;BRPgt;Plt;BRPgt;In Plt;iPgt;Becoming GeorgePlt;/iPgt;, award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates Sand as an intellectual and artistic giant, the beating heart of French literature in the nineteenth century. For too long underestimated, though never by her peers, she speaks to us as a figure in some ways centuries ahead of her time.

Details

ISBN13: 9781529924336
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 400
Edition:
Publication Date: 16 Jun 2026
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 24.2(H)x16.4(L)x3.6(W)612
Weight (gm): 612

Author Biography

Fiona Sampson is a poet, who has been shortlisted twice for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prizes. She has received a Cholmondeley Award, the Newdigate Prize, the Zlaten Prsten (Macedonia), WriterP#8217;s Awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales, and from the Society of Authors, and is a Fellow and Council Member of the Royal Society of Literature. She works as a critic and editor, and contributes regularly to the Plt;iPgt;GuardianPlt;/iPgt;, Plt;iPgt;IrishPlt;/iPgt; Plt;iPgt;TimesPlt;/iPgt;, Plt;iPgt;SundayPlt;/iPgt; Plt;iPgt;TimesPlt;/iPgt;, Independent and the Plt;iPgt;Times Literary SupplementPlt;/iPgt;. In 2017 she was awarded an MBE for services to Literature and the Literary Community.

Reviews

'From [Sampson's] approach emerges a writer who seems as alive as if she had just walked out of the room and could return at any minute. Sand would probably have appreciated Sampson’s sympathetic assessment of the challenges faced by female writers... She would also have enjoyed Sampson’s quietly witty touches. When Sand died... Hugo sent a tribute claiming: “I mourn a dead woman and I salute an immortal one.” Many readers will start this fascinating biography with the assumption that he was merely being polite. By the time they have finished it they will probably agree with him. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * The Times (Book of the Week) *
Thought-provoking . . . Becoming George is a book written with energy, passion and commitment to its fascinating subject. Indeed, it does just what a literary biography should do: it leaves one wanting to read Sand for oneself. -- Lucasta Miller * Literary Review *
Confession, I’ve never read any of her novels – but that doesn’t stop one enjoying this biography of her extraordinary life. * Daily Mail *
Engaging . . . elegant . . . empathetic -- Anthony Cummins * Guardian *
Sampson's vivid and innovative biography will hopefully send a new generation of readers to Sand's work to grapple as she did with her combinations of audacious modernity and old fashioned storytelling. -- Lara Feigel * Observer *
A romp to read . . . Ms Sampson is a skilful writer, who deftly evokes the cultural firmament in which Sand lived and worked. * The Economist *
[Fiona Sampson] expertly immerses readers in the cultural and intellectual world that produced one of the greatest practitioners of 19th-century literature . . . Becoming George re-creates Sand’s life with thoughtfulness and attention to detail . . . Fittingly, Becoming George neither accuses nor glorifies its subject. It functions, instead, as an honest and inquisitive interrogation of a life that has been, for too long, shrunken down and underappreciated. -- Donna Sanders * Wall Street Journal *
A highly readable, subtly inventive book that argues for Sand’s importance not just as a writer but as a cultural figure... It reminds us that Sand is synonymous with the 19th century, France and the extraordinary written culture of that time and place. -- Juliet Jacques * New Humanist *
Biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates her as the beating heart of 19th-century French literature. * i Paper *
What comes through most strongly in this lucid and at times insouciant biography is the irrepressibility of Sand’s voice. It is almost as if she has spurred Sampson on, at least stylistically, even from beyond the grave. * Sydney Morning Herald *

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‘I mourn a dead woman and I salute an immortal one.’ Victor Hugo

‘That men have been able to fall in love with this latrine, is the proof of the abasement of this century’s men.’ Charles Baudelaire

‘An abundance of milk[; a] dairy cow with a “beautiful style”.’ Friedrich Nietzsche

'One had to know her as I did to know how much of the feminine was in that great man, the immensity of tenderness in that genius. Her name will live in unique glory as one of the great figures of France.' Gustave Flaubert

'My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress. […] Be reassured, I do not aspire to the dignity of man. It seems to me too laughable to be much preferable to the servility of woman. But I claim to possess, today and forever, the superb and complete independence which you alone believe you have the right to enjoy. […] So take me for a man or a woman as you wish.' George Sand

* The words of Sand and her contemporaries *