The Last Love of George Sand

A Literary Biography

Evelyne Bloch-Dano

• Publisher: Arcade
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781628725339
• eBook ISBN:
  9781628725605
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Literature

George Sand is one the most celebrated writers and controversial personalities of nineteenth-century France; she is as famous for her bohemian lifestyle as for her written work. The Last Love of George Sand portrays the writer, political activist, and cultural figure as she starts a new chapter in her ever-surprising life: the mature years with her last lover, the young and talented engraver Alexandre Manceau.A turning point came for George Sand in 1849. After her political involvement in the revolution of 1848, Sand retreated to her country property, Nohant, with her son Maurice and started writing new plays. One day, Maurice introduced her to Alexandre Manceau, a young and shy artist thirteen years her junior. At forty-five, she was at the pinnacle of her career. She had a long history of tumultuous love affairs with famous artists such as Musset, Chopin, and Mérimée, but she had never experienced a peaceful and balanced relationship. With Manceau, Sand discovered that she could be loved, and fall in love herself, without drama. Their relationship would last fifteen years, and prove to be the most prolific period of Sand's life, with fifty books published including the novels Elle et lui, inspired by her relationship with Musset, and Le dernier amour, written just ten days after Manceau died of tuberculosis.Although much has been written about George Sand, most of the previous biographies are focused on her more turbulent times. In The Last Love of George Sand, Evelyne Bloch-Dano looks back on Sand's life from the vantage point of her years with Manceau.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter 1 “My Heart Is a Grave”
• Chapter 2 “The Dream of the Simple, the Good, the True”
• Chapter 3 “Always, We Are Ruled by Weaker Minds”
• Chapter 4 “As Pure as Gold”
• Chapter 5 “Engraving Is a Serious Art”
• Chapter 6 “I Prefer to Keep Pressing Forward”
• Chapter 7 “We All Have Our Secrets”
• Chapter 8 “This Wild and Unpredictable Nature”
• Chapter 9 “I Am No Madame de Staël”
• Chapter 10 “Let’s Help One Another Not to Despair”
• Chapter 11 “This Mother Hen Instinct”
• Chapter 12 “My Dear Child, They Have Killed You”
• Chapter 13 “Italia, Italia!”
• Chapter 14 “My Soul Has Grown Old and Weary”
• Chapter 15 “Manceau Owns a House!”
• Chapter 16 “The True Story of She and Him”
• Chapter 17 “Impersonality Has Saved Me”
• Chapter 18 “I So Love My New Daughter”
• Chapter 19 “Let Us Depart, My Old Friend, Let Us Leave”
• Chapter 20 “Your Part Will Never Die”
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Timeline
• Endnotes
• Selected Bibliography