Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, best known by her pseudonym George Sand, was a French novelist and feminist.

Sand's father was of aristocratic lineage (a granddaughter of Maurice, comte de Saxe and a distant relative of Louis XVI); her mother was a commoner. Sand was born in Paris but raised for much of her childhood by her grandmother atthe family estate, Nohant, in the French region of Berry. She later used the setting in many of her novels. In 1822 she married Baron M. Casimir Dudevant (1795-1871), and they had two children: Maurice (1823-1889) and Solange (182-1899). In 1835 Sand was legally separated from her husband, which prompted her lifelong search for true liberty and independence.

Her reputation was questioned when she began sporting menswear in public, the clothes being far sturdier and less expensive than a noble woman's dress. Also, she was one of the few female pipe smokers of her time. This male "disguise" also enabled Sand to circulate more freely about Paris, and gave her increased access to venues that might have been denied to a woman of her social standing. This was an exceptional practice for the 19th century, where social codes,especially in the upper class,were of the highest importance.

As a consequence Sand lost many of the privileges attached to being a Baroness. Ironically, the mores of this period allowed women of higher classes to live physically separated from their husbands without losing face, provided they did not show any blatant irregularity to the outer world.

The poet Charles Baudelaire is one example of a contemporary critic of George Sand: "She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women...The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation."

She was linked romantically with Alfred de Musset (summer 1833-March 1834), Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin (1837-1847). Later in life, she corresponded with Gustave Flaubert; despite their obvious differences in temperament and aesthetic preference, they eventually became close friends.

She was engaged in an intimate friendship with actress Marie Dorval, which led to widespread but unconfirmed rumors of a lesbian affair.

In Majorca one can still visit the (then abandoned) Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa, where she spent the winter of 1838-39 with Frederic Chopin and her children. This trip to Mallorca was described by her in Un Hiver a Majorque ("A Winter in Mallorca"), published in 1855.

She left Chopin shortly before he died from tuberculosis.

From Wikipedia