The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

Two of the 19th century's most luminous literary minds, in intimate conversation across twelve years. George Sand and Gustave Flaubert - she the indomitable novelist who rewrote the rules of French literature, he the meticulous stylist behind Madame Bovary - exchanged letters that reveal far more than mere correspondence. These pages holdArguments about art and morality, confessions of loneliness, witty gossip about mutual acquaintances, and the slow-building warmth of a friendship that transcended their profound differences. Sand, with her maternal warmth and philosophical optimism, challenged the cynic in Flaubert; he, in turn, offered her the rigorous intellectual sparring she craved. Their letters span the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, and reading them feels less like scholarship than like listening in on a secret...