Bernard Mauprat is the young scion of the infamous Mauprat family, notorious for its violence and cruelty. After the death of his mother, he is taken to live at his grandfather's estate of Roche-Mauprat, where he is raised among brutal relations who initiate him into their lawless way of life. After a violent confrontation costs him his uncles, the young Mauprat is taken under the wing of his great-uncle and a female cousin, who set themselves to rescuing him from the abyss of vice and sin in which he was raised.
Set in the years just before the French Revolution, Mauprat is one of George Sand's most celebrated novels, blending Gothic atmosphere with a searching exploration of inequality, female agency, and the redemptive power of love and education. Sand, one of the towering figures of French Romanticism, brings her characteristic moral seriousness and psychological depth to this story of a man's transformation from savagery to civility.
Readers drawn to French Romantic literature, tales of moral redemption, and strong-willed heroines who shape the destinies of the men around them will find much to admire in this classic novel.
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