[2][3] Being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s,[4] Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era.

Like her great-grandmother, Louise Dupin, whom she admired, George Sand advocated for women's rights and passion, criticized the institution of marriage, and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society.

[10]Sand obtained a permit to wear men's clothing in 1831,[11] justifying it as being less expensive and far sturdier than the typical dress of a noblewoman at the time.

In addition to being comfortable, Sand's male attire enabled her to circulate more freely in Paris than most of her female contemporaries and gave her increased access to venues that barred women, even those of her social standing.

"Sand" was derived from the name of her lover and fellow writer Jules Sandeau, as the pair had previously co-authored a novel under the pseudonym J.

However, when writing an autobiography of the author's youth, the person described is a girl/woman whose descriptions aligns with her legal designation as "la demoiselle Aurora.

For instance Jules Janin describes Sand as the king of novellists (ie: "le roi des romanciers modernes")[15] rather than as the queen.

[20] Sand had romantic affairs with the novelist Jules Sandeau (1831), the Polish-Russian Prince Norbert Przanowski (February 1832 – Summer 1833) the writer Prosper Mérimée, the dramatist Alfred de Musset (summer 1833 – March 1835), Louis-Chrysostome Michel, the actor Pierre-François Bocage, the writer Charles Didier, the novelist Félicien Mallefille, the politician Louis Blanc, and the composer Frédéric Chopin (1837–1847).

There must be a sort of paralysis in my brain which prevents what I feel from ever finding a form through which it can achieve communication...When she appeared upon the stage, with her drooping figure, her listless gait, her sad and penetrating glance...I can say only that it was as though I were looking at an embodied spirit.

Likewise, Count Alfred de Vigny, Dorval's lover from 1831 to 1838, warned the actress to stay away from Sand, whom he referred to as "that damned lesbian".

[26] Chopin was already ill with incipient tuberculosis at the beginning of their relationship, and spending a cold and wet winter in Mallorca where they could not get proper lodgings exacerbated his symptoms.

In her novel Lucrezia Floriani, Sand is said to have used Chopin as a model for a sickly Eastern European prince named Karol.

George Sand fell passionately in love with Manceau, he became her lover, companion and secretary and they stayed together for fifteen years until his death.

But she was not confined to Nohant, and travelled in France, and in particular with her great friend Charles Robin-Duvernet at the Château du Petit Coudray, or abroad.

In 1880, her children sold the rights to her literary estate for 125,000 Francs[42] (equivalent to 36 kg worth of gold, or 1.3 million dollars in 2015 USD[44]).

While many Republicans were imprisoned or went to exile after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état of December 1851, she remained in France, maintained an ambiguous relationship with the new regime, and negotiated pardons and reduced sentences for her friends.

[41] Sand was known for her implication and writings during the Paris Commune of 1871, where she took a position for the Versailles assembly against the communards, urging them to take violent action against the rebels.

[54] Honoré de Balzac, who knew Sand personally, once said that if someone thought she wrote badly, it was because their own standards of criticism were inadequate.

He also noted that her treatment of imagery in her works showed that her writing had an exceptional subtlety, having the ability to "virtually put the image in the word.

"[58] Fyodor Dostoevsky "read widely in the numerous novels of George Sand" and translated her La dernière Aldini in 1844, only to learn that it had already been published in Russian.

For instance, in his novella Notes from Underground, the narrator refers to sentiments he expresses as, "I launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties à la George Sand".

[24] In the first episode of the "Overture" to Swann's Way—the first novel in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time sequence—a young, distraught Marcel is calmed by his mother as she reads from François le Champi, a novel which (it is explained) was part of a gift from his grandmother, which also included La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadette, and Les Maîtres Sonneurs.

As with many episodes involving art in À la recherche du temps perdu, this reminiscence includes commentary on the work.

Sand is also referred to in Virginia Woolf's book-length essay A Room of One's Own along with George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë as "all victims of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man.

"[61] Frequent literary references to George Sand appear in Possession (1990) by A. S. Byatt and in the play Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia trilogy (2002).

[citation needed] Chopin, Sand and her children are the main characters of the theater play by Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz A Summer in Nohant, which premiered in 1930.

The play, presenting the final stage of the writer-composer's relationship, was adapted five times by Polish Television: in 1963 (with Antonina Gordon-Górecka as Sand and Gustaw Holoubek as Chopin), in 1972 (with Halina Mikołajska and Leszek Herdegen), in 1980 (with Anna Polony and Michał Pawlicki), in 1999 (with Joanna Szczepkowska, who portrayed Solange in the 1980 version and Piotr Skiba) and in 2021 (with Katarzyna Herman and Marek Kossakowski).

George Sand is portrayed by Merle Oberon in A Song to Remember,[62] by Patricia Morison in Song Without End,[63] by Rosemary Harris in Notorious Woman,[64] by Judy Davis in James Lapine's 1991 British-American film Impromptu; and by Juliette Binoche in the 1999 French film Children of the Century (Les Enfants du siècle).

), a 1973 French biographical film directed by Michèle Rosier and starring Anne Wiazemsky as George Sand, Alain Libolt and Denis Gunsbourg.

In the 2002 Polish film Chopin: Desire for Love directed by Jerzy Antczak George Sand is portrayed by Danuta Stenka.