s."--_New York Mail and Express._

* * * * *

"This is a volume of the 'Famous Women Series,' which was begun so well
with George Eliot and Emily Bronte. The book is a review and critical
analysis of George Sand's life and work, by no means a detailed
biography. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant,
the married woman, is forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George
Sand.

"Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a
representative woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century. She
was great among the greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest
intellects, and Miss Thomas's essay will be a useful and agreeable
introduction to a more extended study of her life and
works."--_Knickerbocker._

* * * * *

"The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in
existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but
with some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her
character, cannot fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done.
It is the best production on George Sand that has yet been published.
The author modestly refers to it as a sketch, which it undoubtedly is,
but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating analysis of George
Sand's life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses which
prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow
public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this
remarkable character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter,
which says, 'In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional
than even a great genius.' That tells the whole story. Misconstruction,
condemnation, and isolation are the penalties enforced upon the great
leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by the bigoted people of their
time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, whose soul-wings are not
strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and consequently they
censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George Sand, even
to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim to
ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced
to recognize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each
widely different in her character and method of thought and writing....
She has told much that is good which has been untold, and