The Romances of George Sand takes the heroine from a childhood in the aristocracy amidst the Napoleonic Wars, to an unhappy early marriage and eventual divorce, to her careers as a country doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, and most successfully as a romance novelist. This is a story about the revolutions in a woman's heart as she goes through dozens of love affairs. It is also about George's involvement in violent, political revolutions of her time, including the July and June Revolutions and the 1848 Revolution; in the latter, she served as the unofficial Minister of Propaganda. The story is full of military battles, coup d'etat maneuvers, duels, malevolent plots, infidelity, artistic discussions, monumental legal cases, and reflections on the nature of love, family, romance, rebellion, and femininity. The history behind each of the events depicted is researched with biographical precision, but liberty is taken with some events that have been contested by historians, including the lesbian affair George had with Marie Dorval and the identity of the real father of her second child. Students of literature and history will recognize many of the central characters, as George befriended Napoleon I and III, Alexander Dumas pere and fils, Frederic Chopin, Alfred de Musset, and a long list of other notables.
"What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative." -Belinda Jack, author of George Sand: A Woman's Life Writ Large and Professor of Rhetoric, Gresham College, Christ Church, University of Oxford
"Anna Faktorovich has succeeded in writing a historical novel about George Sand... that is pleasing to read for readers of literary historical fiction and scholars alike... a complex and exquisitely researched novel that gets you hooked after a few pages... The tragedy of a woman searching for true love in a society dominated by males, and failing to find it in her numerous and invariably tragic affairs... is conveyed in a subtle and deeply moving manner... This is not a light historical novel but an elaborate story about a feminist avant la letter..." -Bob Van Laerhoven, Author of critically acclaimed, Baudelaire's Revenge (Pegasus Books)
"Here is a novel that will cheer readers through many a dreary night. The young George Sand, née Aurore, grows up as the French Revolution and Terror, Napolean's rise and fall, war, life in a convent but also in Parisian society all roll by, but not merely as background, since Aurore participates as a child, adolescent, nubile young woman (whom relatives try to marry off), and adult, who does marry, bears children, and has many (erotic) affairs (as does her husband, naturally). Hugo, Chopin, de Musset, and other well-known personages show up, as Sand writes and publishes her novels. For those readers who revel in precise historical detail and personal adventure, the handsomely designed and very nicely illustrated Romances of George Sand is a book you will relish." ?Robert Hauptman, PhD, Editor, Journal of Information Ethics
"Anna Faktorovich presents an original paradigm, which belies the usual myths about George Sand. Faktorovich creates believable scenes with lively dialogue from just one or two lines in Sands biography, thus energizing the role of the only major female novelist in the French Romantic Movement. The Romances of George Sand is a must-read for scholars who will understand the numerous insider jokes and for women interested in the historical pioneers of feminism." ?Rosie Rosenzweig, Resident Scholar, Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University
