Reading Order
IndianaIndiana Reading Order
Indiana (1832) by George Sand (the pseudonym of Aurore Dupin Dudevant) was her first published novel and immediately established her as the most important woman novelist in France — a proto-feminist work about a young Creole woman trapped in a stifling marriage to an older Alsatian colonel, who falls under the spell of the charm of the shallow Raymon de Ramière and eventually finds liberation only by emigrating to the French colony of Réunion with the loyal Ralph Brown. Indiana is explicitly a response to the legal situation of married women in France — the Code Napoléon gave husbands almost complete authority over their wives' persons and property — and the novel's Preface (to the second edition, 1842) makes the political argument explicit: Indiana is the representative of 'the unjust laws that govern woman's existence in marriage, in family, and in society.' The novel was written in a burst of eight weeks after George Sand had separated from her husband and moved to Paris; it launched both the 'George Sand' pseudonym (she had published two previous novels under a joint pseudonym with Jules Sandeau) and one of the most prolific and influential literary careers of the century. Sand went on to write more than seventy novels; Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Henry James all acknowledged their debt to her.
Where to start
Indiana (1832) — the Oxford World's Classics edition translated by Sylvia Raphael (1994) is the standard English translation; the Sigrid Press edition translated by Eleanor Hochman is also available. The Preface to the second edition (1842) is essential reading and explains the novel's feminist argument explicitly. Read alongside Adolphe and Madame Bovary to see the full range of French nineteenth-century fiction about marriage.
Complete Indiana Book List
- 1Buy
Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)
George Sand (trans. Sylvia Raphael)·1994·The standard English translation — Raphael's introduction is the best brief account of Sand's feminism and the legal context of married women in Napoleonic France; essential for understanding what the novel was arguing in 1832. - 2Buy
Lélia
George Sand·1833·Sand's second major novel and the most philosophically radical — where Indiana argues for women's right to leave bad marriages, Lélia goes further: her heroine is a woman who has lost the capacity for love itself and meditates on the impossibility of finding the absolute in the human; the most intellectually ambitious of Sand's early novels. - 3Buy
The Story of My Life
George Sand·1855·Sand's massive autobiography — the essential companion to Indiana for understanding the life that produced the novel; Sand's account of her marriage to Casimir Dudevant and her decision to leave him for Paris is the autobiographical context for Indiana's feminist argument. - 4Buy
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert·1857·The French novel that is Indiana's most important literary descendant — Flaubert admired Sand and Emma Bovary's entrapment in a provincial marriage she despises is the later, more clinical version of Indiana's situation; reading both together shows the transformation of the Romantic novel about female dissatisfaction into the realist one. - 5Buy
Consuelo
George Sand·1842·Sand's most celebrated later novel — a massive roman à clef about a female opera singer that draws on Sand's relationship with Chopin and her knowledge of European music; if Indiana doesn't satisfy, Consuelo shows Sand's range and the full development of her art beyond the apprentice work.
Indiana — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Indiana by George Sand about?
Indiana (1832) by George Sand follows Indiana, a young Creole woman in France who is trapped in a stifling marriage to the older Colonel Delmare. She falls under the romantic spell of the shallow Raymon de Ramière, who manipulates and eventually abandons her, and finds eventual liberation only by emigrating to the French colony of Réunion with the loyal Ralph Brown. The novel is explicitly a response to the legal situation of married women in France under the Code Napoléon, which gave husbands almost complete authority over their wives. Sand's Preface calls Indiana 'the representative of the unjust laws that govern woman's existence in marriage, in family, and in society.'
Why did George Sand use a male pseudonym?
George Sand (born Aurore Dupin Dudevant, 1804–1876) used a male pseudonym because women writers in early nineteenth-century France were not taken seriously by critics and publishers, and because she needed to protect herself legally — she had separated from her husband Casimir Dudevant, and a public identity as a woman writing scandalous novels about female autonomy would have exposed her to legal retaliation. 'George Sand' was derived from 'Jules Sandeau,' with whom she had published two earlier novels. The pseudonym gave her the freedom to write about marriage, sexuality, and social injustice in ways that would have been impossible under her legal name. By the 1840s she was famous enough that the pseudonym was an open secret, but she kept it for her entire career.
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