11 h 15 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 11 h 15 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the marriage that protects your family’s name leaves no room for your heart?
In the countryside of Berry, Valentine grows up with the duties of an old noble family. Her mother, Madame de Raimbault, values rank and gain, and a match with Count de Lansac promises both. Affection has no place in these plans, yet Valentine believes in loyalty to her family and her word.
Then there is Bénédict: educated, proud, sensitive, and born into a farming family. Drawn to Valentine, he stands uneasily between the land and the great house. In George Sand’s romance, their feelings cross a line that family ambition keeps firmly drawn. Valentine’s struggle turns inward: how can she honour her promises when her heart refuses to obey?
What you’ll discover
- A heart under pressure Follow a gentle, dutiful woman whose feelings resist the future her family chooses.
- Love across social lines Meet Bénédict, whose education and pride cannot erase the weight of his farming origins.
- Marriage as family business See how rank and money shape a match where affection carries little weight.
- The countryside of Berry Enter a rural world where the land and the great house stand apart.
- Room for difficult feelings Settle into a slow, feeling-led story of loyalty, longing, and the claims of duty.
Who will love it
This book suits readers who love romantic novels with moral stakes, French country settings, and rich portraits of class and family. If music, landscape and conscience move you, you will feel at home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A hidden valley hosts one May Day fair
- Bénédict is clever, restless, and out of place
- A lost night ride leads to a secret reunion
- Spies, pianos, and a mother's hard past
- A summer day at the farm starts a love
- Duty closes in as the wedding approaches
- Fifteen quiet months in a hidden pavilion
- Money and rank decide who may love
- Passion and conscience tear Valentine apart
- Nature, music, and objects carry the feeling
Who’s who
- Valentine de RaimbaultA gentle, devout noblewoman who longs for a simple home and loves her banished sister, and who is drawn against her will to a farmer's nephew.
- Bénédict LhéryA restless, gifted young man, raised above his class, who wants a purpose and finds it in a hopeless love for Valentine.
- LouiseValentine's older half-sister, banished long ago, who raises her son alone and hides at the farm to see the family she lost.
- Athénaïs LhéryThe vain, warm-hearted farmer's daughter who is promised to Bénédict and wants to rise in the world, whatever it costs.
- Monsieur de LansacA polished diplomat who marries Valentine for her fortune and wants only to pay his debts without scandal.
- The Countess de RaimbaultValentine's proud, bitter mother, a merchant's daughter who loved court life and now guards her rank and her lawsuits.
- Pierre BluttyA rich, rough cattle dealer's son who wins Athénaïs and burns with jealousy of her cousin.
- ValentinLouise's gentle son, who looks like Valentine and finds a second home with her and Bénédict.
Formats and delivery
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Valentina
by George Sand · 1832
On May Day in rural Berry, one stolen kiss at a village dance pulls a farmer's nephew toward a countess's daughter.
Medium level5–10 hours to readItaliano
Excellent
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In short
Why does one kiss at a village dance matter so much? On May Day in Berry, in central France, a hurdy-gurdy player pushes Bénédict, a farmer's nephew with a city education, to kiss Valentine de Raimbault.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A hidden valley hosts one May Day fair
The story opens in the Black Valley, a corner of Berry where lanes sink between hedges and a village means a church tower, a dozen cottages and four elm trees. Sand describes it with the care of someone who grew up there. The place is not a backdrop but a presence that shapes every character.
On May first the whole district goes to a fair. At the farm of Grangeneuve, the tenant Father Lhéry and his wife dress their sixteen-year-old daughter Athénaïs like a lady. Her cousin Bénédict, a young man in black, watches with irony. The Lhérys took him in as an orphan, and now they plan to give him Athénaïs as his wife.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1832
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 7 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Sand, George. Valentine. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/valentine.
Sand, G. (2026). Valentine. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/valentine (Original work published 1832)
Sand, George. Valentine. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/valentine.
@book{sand2026valentine,
author = {Sand, George},
title = {Valentine},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/valentine},
note = {First published 1832}
}
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What is Valentine by George Sand about?
It tells of Valentine de Raimbault, a countess's daughter engaged to a count, and Bénédict, a farmer's nephew with a city education. Their love grows in the countryside of Berry and clashes with rank, marriage, money and conscience.
Who is Louise in Valentine?
Louise is Valentine's older half-sister, the daughter of the late Count de Raimbault. She was banished fifteen years earlier and now hides at a farm with the family that once nursed her, hoping to see Valentine again.
When was Valentine written and where is it set?
Sand published it in 1832, soon after Indiana. It is set in the Black Valley in Berry, central France, a region she knew from childhood, in the years after Napoleon when old nobles and new rich families competed for status.
The author
George Sand
1804–1876 · French novelist and memoirist
George Sand was the pen name of Aurore Dupin, a French novelist and memoirist. She was born in Paris in 1804 and died at Nohant in 1876. She lived in Paris and Nohant. Her novels include Indiana (1832), Mauprat (1837), The Devil’s Pool (1846), and Little Fadette (1849).
More by George Sand
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