Reprint of the 1900 ed. published by G. Barrie, Philadelphia, which was issued as v. 1 of The masterpieces of George Sand.

The first novel that George Sand wrote without a collaborator, this is not only a vivid romance, but also an impassioned plea for change in the inequitable French marriage laws of the time, and for a new view of women. It tells the story of Indiana, a beautiful and innocent French Creole girl, married at sixteen to a much older man. She falls in love with her handsome, frivolous neighbor, but discovers too late that his love is quite different from her own. The novel deals with many typical nineteenth-century novelistic themes. These include adultery, social constraint, and unfulfilled longing for romantic love. The novel is an exploration of nineteenth-century female desire complicated by class constraints and by social codes about infidelity. In another sense, the novel critiques the laws around women's equality in France. Indiana cannot leave her husband, Colonel Delmare, because she lacks the protection of the law: under the Napoleonic Code, women could not obtain property, claim ownership of their children, or divorce. Finally, the novel touches on the subordination of the colonies to the French Empire.

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