Indiana (1831) is an absorbing and vivid romantic novel, set partly in provincial France, partly in Paris, and partly on a tropical island. It tells the story of a beautiful and innocent young woman, married at sixteen to a much older man. She falls passionately in love with a handsome, frivolous neighbour but discovers too late that his idea of love is quite different from her own. It is only after a series of painful experiences that she comes to appreciate the silentdevotion of her loyal and protective cousin. - ;The first novel that George Sand wrote without a collaborator, Indiana is not only a romance but also a powerful plea for change in the inequitable French marriage laws of the time, for better education for women, and for a new attitude to their position in society. Naomi Schor's introduction explores attitudes to Sand in her own time as well as more recent feminist responses, and it examines the powerful and complex patterns of imagery and relationships in thenovel. -