April Fitzlyon
George Sand
Winter in Majorca
By George Sand, Robert Graves (trans. and ed.)
Academy Press 200pp $5.00 order from our bookshop
My Convent Life
By George Sand
Academy Press 219pp $4.95 order from our bookshop
Indiana
By George Sand
Academy Press 327pp $4.95 order from our bookshop
Much of George Sand’s fiction is autobiography, and most of her autobiography is fiction. When some episode in her life ended badly, it was her habit to write a book about it in order to justify herself. The winter of 1838–39, which she spent in Majorca with Chopin and her two children, was not a success; the weather was bad, and seriously affected Chopin’s health, and the natives appeared to be hostile. The Majorcans may have been pained by George Sand’s anti-Catholicism, her unconventional life and her rudeness; but this was not the reason why they ostracised her and her family. They did so because they rightly suspected that Chopin had consumption and – somewhat ahead of their time – they rightly suspected that it was infectious.
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