Becoming George

'From [Sampson's] approach emerges a writer who seems as alive as if she had just walked out of the room and could return at any minute. Sand would probably have appreciated Sampson’s sympathetic assessment of the challenges faced by female writers... She would also have enjoyed Sampson’s quietly witty touches. When Sand died... Hugo sent a tribute claiming: “I mourn a dead woman and I salute an immortal one.” Many readers will start this fascinating biography with the assumption that he was merely being polite. By the time they have finished it they will probably agree with him. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * The Times (Book of the Week) *
Thought-provoking . . . BecomingGeorge is a book written with energy, passion and commitment to its fascinating subject. Indeed, it does just what a literary biography should do: it leaves one wanting to read Sand for oneself. -- Lucasta Miller * Literary Review *
Confession, I’ve never read any of her novels – but that doesn’t stop one enjoying this biography of her extraordinary life. * Daily Mail *
Engaging . . . elegant . . . empathetic -- Anthony Cummins * Guardian *
Sampson's vivid and innovative biography will hopefully send a new generation of readers to Sand's work to grapple as she did with her combinations of audacious modernity and old fashioned storytelling. -- Lara Feigel * Observer *
A romp to read . . . Ms Sampson is a skilful writer, who deftly evokes the cultural firmament in which Sand lived and worked. * The Economist *
[Fiona Sampson] expertly immerses readers in the cultural and intellectual world that produced one of the greatest practitioners of 19th-century literature . . . Becoming George re-creates Sand’s life with thoughtfulness and attention to detail . . . Fittingly, Becoming George neither accuses nor glorifies its subject. It functions, instead, as an honest and inquisitive interrogation of a life that has been, for too long, shrunken down and underappreciated. -- Donna Sanders * Wall Street Journal *
A highly readable, subtly inventive book that argues for Sand’s importance not just as a writer but as a cultural figure... It reminds us that Sand is synonymous with the 19th century, France and the extraordinary written culture of that time and place. -- Juliet Jacques * New Humanist *
Biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates her as the beating heart of 19th-century French literature. * i Paper *
What comes through most strongly in this lucid and at times insouciant biography is the irrepressibility of Sand’s voice. It is almost as if she has spurred Sampson on, at least stylistically, even from beyond the grave. * Sydney Morning Herald *
In her biography of the novelist George Sand, Fiona Sampson urges us to see Sand chiefly as a writer, an inventor of stories and also of the self. -- Rebecca Chao * New York Times Book Review *
Fiona Sampson beautifully describes the “self-invention” of George Sand, the Romantic period’s most famous woman writer, and in the process paints a vivid portrait of a world in the throes of political and artistic revolution. -- Maurice Samuels, author of Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair
Becoming George is a lyrical and absorbing account of how one of the nineteenth century’s most original and fascinating figures willed herself into existence. In a world that didn’t know what to make of a brilliant, prolific, rule-breaking, female writer, George Sand harnessed her creativity and courage to fashion a life lived on her own terms. Fiona Sampson brings the shifting iterations of George Sand to vivid, immediate life in a work brimming with poetry, humor, and insight. -- Victoria Johnson, Pulitzer Prize finalist for American Eden
An entertaining introduction to an influential writer. * Kirkus *
Sampson offers a vivid biography of French writer George Sand . . . a panoramic chronicle of a complex life. * Publishers Weekly *
Fiona Sampson’s book about George Sand is very good . . . Sampson’s tone is one of the book’s greatest strengths: brisk, modern, and clear. She has a keen eye for detail and for moments that bring the past into focus . . . an absorbing biography of a fascinating woman. -- Katherine Pangonis * Engelsberg Ideas *
This is a beautifully written and innovative biography. Especially noteworthy are the sections set apart from the narrative and called “impressions” constituting Ms. Sampson’s rumination over significant drawings and photographs that evoke various stages of Sand’s career. -- Carl Rollyson * The New York Sun *
A spirited biography. -- Belinda Jack * Times Literary Supplement *
An electrifying book . . . Sampson brings to this project the instincts of a detective as much as a poet. She pursues her subject through archives, images and cultural history with such tenacity that the book generates genuine suspense . . . This biography is revelation. * Scene Magazine *

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‘I mourn a dead woman and I salute an immortal one.’ Victor Hugo

‘That men have been able to fall in love with this latrine, is the proof of the abasement of this century’s men.’ Charles Baudelaire

‘An abundance of milk[; a] dairy cow with a “beautiful style”.’ Friedrich Nietzsche

'One had to know her as I did to know how much of the feminine was in that great man, the immensity of tenderness in that genius. Her name will live in unique glory as one of the great figures of France.' Gustave Flaubert

'My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress. […] Be reassured, I do not aspire to the dignity of man. It seems to me too laughable to be much preferable to the servility of woman. But I claim to possess, today and forever, the superb and complete independence which you alone believe you have the right to enjoy. […] So take me for a man or a woman as you wish.' George Sand

* The words of Sand and her contemporaries *