In the following extract, Naginski argues that although Sand's contemporaries did not always see her as a serious writer, Sand had a well-developed and clearly articulated poetics, which emphasized the ideal over the real and the rural over the urban and which was founded upon an androgynous vision that revolted against socially sanctioned gender inequality.

In this study of Valentine, Miller explores the spatial and sexual economy of the text to highlight Sand's attempts to provide an alternative to the female plot of marriage within a patriarchal framework.

In the following excerpt, Crecelius focuses on Lélia, a novel that has evoked extreme reactions from critics. According to Crecelius, these sharp differences are caused by the varied generic traditions that the novel draws upon to explore the dark side of Sand's imagination.

A highly regarded novelist, essayist, and critic, James was one of the nineteenth-century's leading proponents of realism in fiction-writing. In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in the Galaxy in 1877, he reviews Sand's literary accomplishments, praising the "facility" and "spontaneity" of her writing but criticizing her works as lacking "veracity. "

Exploring Sand's problematic relationship with the literary canon, Schor argues that the writer's commitment to idealism, rather than her gender, is the cause of her exclusion from the canon during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nonetheless, Schor continues, gender is also important in understanding Sand's position vis-a-vis the canon, since Sand uses idealism in her novels as a strategy of revolt against the phallocentrism inherent in the Balzacian realism exalted ...

In the following essay, Yalom examines Sand's portrayal of "doubled" or paired female characters in three of her novels — Indiana, Lélia, and My Sister Jeanne. According to Yalom, these doubled characters represent the split between mind and body and Sand's attempts to accept both these aspects of women.

In the following essay, Rogers traces Sand's sociopolitical awareness in her early novels. Though these novels are more pessimistic than Sand's later works, she argues, they display a similar commitment to equality and freedom.