George Sand was admired by Dostoevsky, Whitman, Flaubert, Thackeray and Elizabeth Barret Browning as on of the greatest writers of her time. Her sixty novels received critical acclaim and earned her enough money to donate over a million pounds to socialist causes. But now she is remembered mainly as a 'femme fatale' who wore trousers, smoked cigars and lived with Chopin, among other well-known men. In this critical introduction to Sand's works, Dickenson pulls together all the myths about her and vigorously challenges them, offering fresh insights into Sand's writings, sexuality and the complex relationship between these two spheres of her life.