Mother both superior and inferior

In January 1831 26-year-old Aurore Dupin Duvenant abandoned her secure provincial existence, her husband and small children, and set out for Paris and la vie bohème. She soon took a 19-year-old lover, adopted male dress, and began to write for a living. The publication of her novel Indiana led to a staff job on La Revue and she became, overnight, both rich and famous. She was no longer Mme Duvenant but known to the world as George Sand.

Aurore adopted her male nom de plume on the advice of her editor who believed that books by women would not sell. However, unlike other female writers who employed gender deception — of whom our own Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) and the Bront