Books: Always a Woman

THE LIFE OF THE HEART—Frances Winwar—Harper ($3).

When the woman who called herself George Sand died in 1876, she was regarded as France's most brilliant woman novelist. She was also the world's most talked-about feminist. No woman writer since Sappho had made such an impression on her male contemporaries, or left in her wake such a tumult of debate. The public had heard her called everything from whore to angel. Now Biographer Frances Winwar (who changed her own name from Vinciguerra) has retold the story of George Sand with a tenderness, knowledge and enthusiasm...