
Becoming George
The Invention of George Sand
Fiona Sampson(Author)
Doubleday (Publisher)
Published on 19. February 2026
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-1-5299-2433-6 (ISBN)
Description
My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress... So take me for a man or a woman as you wish.
By the age of thirty, the novelist who had been born Aurore Dupin in 1804 had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English, her daring literary experiments were out-selling even Victor Hugo. But the legend of Sand herself scandalised Paris. Not only prodigiously talented but cigar-smoking, cross-dressing and promiscuous, she seemed to break all the rules society set for women.
What can we learn from the way she lived? Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy? Or did her emotional and creative relationships with many of the leading figures of her day - from Fryderyk Chopin to Gustave Flaubert, and Alfred de Musset to Eugene Delacroix - form part of her dialogue with the world around her: a dialogue that is intrinsic to writing itself?
In Becoming George, award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates Sand as an intellectual and artistic giant, the beating heart of French literature in the nineteenth century. Too often underestimated in the century and a half since her death, she speaks to us today - about ecology, politics, society, gender - with brilliant prescience; a figure ahead of her time.
Praise for Fiona Sampson:
'Fiona Sampson is a sleuth of a biographer ... rarely has my jaw dropped on so many occasions while reading a biography.' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Daily Mail on In Search of Mary Shelley
'Brilliant, heart-stopping ... reads like a thriller, a memoir and a provocative piece of literary fiction all at the same time ... magical and compelling.' Charlotte Gordon, Washington Post on Two Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
'If we get another literary biography [this year] as astute and feelingful as this one, we shall be lucky.' John Carey, The Sunday Times on In Search of Mary Shelley
By the age of thirty, the novelist who had been born Aurore Dupin in 1804 had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English, her daring literary experiments were out-selling even Victor Hugo. But the legend of Sand herself scandalised Paris. Not only prodigiously talented but cigar-smoking, cross-dressing and promiscuous, she seemed to break all the rules society set for women.
What can we learn from the way she lived? Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy? Or did her emotional and creative relationships with many of the leading figures of her day - from Fryderyk Chopin to Gustave Flaubert, and Alfred de Musset to Eugene Delacroix - form part of her dialogue with the world around her: a dialogue that is intrinsic to writing itself?
In Becoming George, award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates Sand as an intellectual and artistic giant, the beating heart of French literature in the nineteenth century. Too often underestimated in the century and a half since her death, she speaks to us today - about ecology, politics, society, gender - with brilliant prescience; a figure ahead of her time.
Praise for Fiona Sampson:
'Fiona Sampson is a sleuth of a biographer ... rarely has my jaw dropped on so many occasions while reading a biography.' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Daily Mail on In Search of Mary Shelley
'Brilliant, heart-stopping ... reads like a thriller, a memoir and a provocative piece of literary fiction all at the same time ... magical and compelling.' Charlotte Gordon, Washington Post on Two Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
'If we get another literary biography [this year] as astute and feelingful as this one, we shall be lucky.' John Carey, The Sunday Times on In Search of Mary Shelley
Reviews / Votes
'I mourn a dead woman and I salute an immortal one.' Victor Hugo'That men have been able to fall in love with this latrine, is the proof of the abasement of this century's men.' Charles Baudelaire
'An abundance of milk[; a] dairy cow with a "beautiful style".' Friedrich Nietzsche
'One had to know her as I did to know how much of the feminine was in that great man, the immensity of tenderness in that genius. Her name will live in unique glory as one of the great figures of France.' Gustave Flaubert
'My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress. [...] Be reassured, I do not aspire to the dignity of man. It seems to me too laughable to be much preferable to the servility of woman. But I claim to possess, today and forever, the superb and complete independence which you alone believe you have the right to enjoy. [...] So take me for a man or a woman as you wish.' George Sand * The words of Sand and her contemporaries *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
610 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-2433-6 (9781529924336)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 03/2027
Penguin (Transworld)
€14.00
Not yet published

E-Book
02/2026
Transworld Digital
€14.99
Available for download
Person
Fiona Sampson MBE FRSL is a leading British poet, a writer and Romanticist. Professor Emerita of Poetry, University of Roehampton and Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College University of Oxford, she has received numerous national and international literary awards. Translated into over thirty languages, she's the author of two acclaimed biographies. In Search of Mary Shelley was an Observer, Independent, Financial Times and a Times Book of the Year. Two-Way Mirror was Washington Post Book of the Year, New York Times bestseller, finalist for the Plutarch Prize & US PEN's Jacqueline Bograd Weld international award for biography.