2-982-148 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Madame Dudevant (Georges Sand), 1876. Engraving from a photograph by P. Verdot of Chateauroux. 'Aurore Dupin was...early inspired with high-flown ideas of human liberty and equality; of social democracy, the right of woman to make herself a man...She was taught as a girl all manner of masculine accomplishments, fencing and shooting as well as riding...[Her] husband...became jealous of her regard for M. Jules Sandeau, a law student...five years her junior...There was a quarrel, and a legal separation, Madame Dudevant purchasing her conjugal emancipation by the sacrifice of her paternal estate...It was in the Figaro that she began, writing jointly or alternately with Jules Sandeau under a common name, that of "Georges Sand," which seemed to imply a male authorship...she then started upon a very brilliant career of independent authorship'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.