June 29, 2026

Episode 813: George Sand with Fiona Sampson

Episode 813: George Sand with Fiona Sampson

In Episode 813 of the History of Literature Podcast, Jacke talks to award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson about her book Becoming George, which examines George Sand's iconoclasm and rehabilitates her as an intellectual and artistic giant.

Upon her death, French novelist George Sand (1804-1876) was widely recognized as one of the most popular and acclaimed writers in Europe. And yet, even then, the legend of the cigar-smoking, cross-dressing, promiscuous writer threatened to overshadow her literary accomplishments. Fast forward to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the English-speaking world has all but forgotten Sand the novelist, instead recalling her as a side character in a suit, a wannabe artist who hitched her wagon to greater geniuses like Chopin and Flaubert.

For more from Fiona Sampson, check out Episode 776 on the History of Literature, which features her work on Mary Shelley. In this episode, Jacke talks to Fiona about her work on Shelley: In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein and Mary Shelley in Bath. Take a listen!

 

 

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