La Comtesse de Rudolstadt Reading Order

La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1843-44) by George Sand is the sequel to Consuelo (1842-43) and the conclusion of the two-novel cycle that constitutes Sand's most ambitious work of historical fiction — following the Spanish singer Consuelo from her adventures in Bohemia through her imprisonment in the Fortress of Spandau (where she meets Gottlieb, the illegitimate son of Frederick the Great, who becomes her husband and is revealed to be Count Albert de Rudolstadt, apparently dead since Consuelo), and into the underground world of the Invisibles, a fictional secret society combining the historical Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, and Sand's own utopian socialist politics. La Comtesse de Rudolstadt is remarkable in the French tradition for the ambition of its political vision: the Invisibles are a secret society working toward the liberation of humanity through art, music, and revolutionary political action, and Consuelo-as-Comtesse becomes their agent and emblem — the great singer who uses her art in the service of human freedom. Sand's feminist politics are central to the structure: in a world where women cannot hold political power, the great artist uses the indirect power of art to accomplish what direct political action cannot, and Consuelo is the most fully realized version of Sand's ideal of the woman artist as social force.