Henry James and George Sand: Lives and After-lives

This article studies James's changing perception of a figure whose 'unedited' history entered the public domain after her death. Long familiar with her fiction, James had doubted on George Sand's death in 1876 whether her reputation could last. But 'lurid' new material appearing from the 1890s rekindled his interest. Notably, a three-volume 'Life' based on family archives focussed issues already pre-occupying James. Relations of life to art, of privacy to public exposure, and the growing movement for women's emancipation in England, gave George Sand contemporary standing. His last and finest essay tells us as much about James as it does about his French subject.