GEORGE SAND.
Reading edition
BY
BERTHA THOMAS.
BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1883.
Copyright, 1883, By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The authentic materials available for an account of the life of George Sand, although lately increased by the publication of a large part of her correspondence, are still incomplete. Her memoirs by her own hand, dealing fully with her early life alone, remain unsupplemented by any entire and detailed biography, for which, indeed, the time seems hardly yet come. Hence one among many obvious difficulties in the way of this attempt to prepare for English readers a brief sketch that shall at least indicate all the more salient features of a life of singularly varied aspect.
Much, though of interest in itself, must here be omitted, as beyond the scope of the present study. There are points again into which, as touching persons still living or quite recently deceased, it would be premature to enter. But none seem of such importance as to forbid the endeavor, by a careful review of those facts in the life of George Sand which most justly represent her character as a whole, and were the determining influences on her career and on her work, to arrive at truth and completeness of general outline, the utmost it is possible to hope to accomplish in this little volume.
Bertha Thomas.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Early Years
CHAPTER II.
Girlhood and Married Life
CHAPTER III.
Début in Literature
CHAPTER IV.
Lélia—Italian Journey
CHAPTER V.
Mental Development
CHAPTER VI.
Solitude, Society and Socialism
CHAPTER VII.
Consuelo—Home Life at Nohant
CHAPTER VIII.
Novelist and Politician
CHAPTER IX.
Pastoral Tales
CHAPTER X.
Plays and Later Novels
CHAPTER XI.
Artist and Moralist
CHAPTER XII.
Later Years