Episode Details

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin adopted the pen name George Sand and became the most prolific and controversial writer in 19th-century France. She wore men's clothing, smoked cigars in public, and conducted affairs with Chopin and Musset while publishing more than 70 novels.

This episode traces how Sand challenged every social convention of her era and still managed to earn the grudging respect of literary Paris through sheer volume and quality of work.

• Why she adopted a male pseudonym and masculine dress
• Her turbulent love affair with Frédéric Chopin
• The political radicalism that made her a voice of the 1848 revolution
• How her literary output dwarfed that of her famous male contemporaries