GEORGE SAND

Aurore Dupin was born in Paris in 1804, and spent her childhood at Nohant, in Barry. She studied for three years at the Convent des Anglaises in Paris, where she became involved in mysticism.
Returning to Nohant, she read Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Chateaubriand, and other the-popular philosophers. When her marriage to born Dudevant ended in 1822, she returned to Paris to earn her living as a writer. She took the name George Sand as a nom de plume, because of her perception that women authors were not as marketable as men. Her novel Indiana (1832) first made famous the pseudonym she would use during 40 years of literary activity.