Un Hiver à Majorque Reading Order

Why did Sand and Chopin go to Majorca?

George Sand and Frédéric Chopin traveled to Majorca in October 1838 primarily because Chopin's health was deteriorating — he had been showing symptoms of tuberculosis for several years, and Sand hoped that the Mediterranean climate would restore him. Sand had also taken her two children, Maurice and Solange, and was partly looking for a cheaper way to support them and continue her writing while removing Chopin from the damp Paris climate. The choice of Majorca was partly practical (it was warm and cheap by the standards of the time) and partly Romantic (the idea of the island paradise, remote from civilization, appealed to Sand's literary imagination — she would use similar settings in her novels). The reality was very different: the Majorcan winter was unusually cold and wet, the local population was suspicious of the unconventional visitors (Chopin was sick, Sand was a woman who wore trousers and smoked cigars, and they were unmarried), and the monastery of Valdemossa where they eventually settled was beautiful but damp and cold. Chopin composed several of his Preludes (Op. 28) in the monastery, including the famous Raindrop Prelude; Sand wrote part of Spiridion and began Consuelo. They left in February 1839, Chopin barely able to travel. Sand's account, published in 1842, was partly a settling of scores with the Majorcan population that had treated them badly and partly a literary record of an extraordinary creative winter.