Sand, George

A pseudonym of Aurore Dudevant, a French author born in Paris as Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, but from the age of four mainly raised by her aristocratic grandmother at the family estate of Nohant in Berry. Her father was Maurice Dupin, also an aristocrat. After a time at a convent school in Paris she married baron Casimir Dudevant when 18 years old, and she had two children with him, but the marriage was not happy and was dissolved in 1835. Aurore settled in Paris with her children. Under the male pseudonym of George Sand she concentrated on a career as a journalist and author in Paris, where she eventually became one of the most illustrious and gossiped-about women of the time. She was bohemian, liberated, politically radical and economically independent, and became one of the pioneers of equality for women.