George Sand, the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804-76), was a French novelist, memoirist and socialist, recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She was born in Paris and raised for much of her childhood by her grandmother at her estate in the province of Berry, which Sand later used as the setting for many of her novels. She adopted an unconventional lifestyle, donning male attire and smoking in public, and in 1831 left her husband, whom she had narried at 18 in 1822, to enter upon a period of 'romantic rebellion' before legally separating in 1835 and taking custody of their two children. She had affairs with a number of prominent literary figures including Prosper Merimee and Alfred de Musset, and a long relationship with the composer, Chopin. By the age of 27 she was the most popular writer in Europe, remaining immensely influential throughout her lifetime and long after her death. In 1836 the first of several compendia of her writings was published in 24 volumes and in total four separate editions of her 'Complete Works' were published in her lifetime. The Countess of Rudolstadt (1843) is a sequel to Consuelo (1842) in which the title character, the penniless daughter of a Spanish gypsy, is transformed into an opera star. The sequel sees Consuelo, or the Countess of Rudolstadt, travelling through a mid-18th century Europe where absolute rulers mingle with Enlightenment philosophers, and secret societies plot moral and political revolution. As the old order breaks down, she undergoes a series of grueling initiations into radically redefined notions of marriage and social organization. Reprinted from an English translation by Fayette Robinson (?-1859).