11 h 15 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 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
You will love it if you enjoy romantic novels with rich country settings, family secrets, and heroines who must choose between what society asks and what the heart wants.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A May fair opens the Black Valley
- Bénédict's learning leaves him restless and unfit
- A forbidden kiss at the village dance
- A night ride leads Valentine to her sister
- Louise's past and a spy sent off the scent
- Tuning a piano becomes a secret errand
- Love grows on a day at the farm
- Duty closes in as the wedding nears
- What the novel says about class, marriage and feeling
Who’s who
- Valentine de RaimbaultA gentle, devout young noblewoman engaged to Monsieur de Lansac, she longs for a simple country life and a sister she lost.
- Bénédict LhéryAn orphaned farmer's nephew with a Paris education, restless and proud, he sings beautifully and cannot settle to any career.
- LouiseValentine's exiled older half sister, hiding at the farm as a poor relative of the Lhérys, who longs to see her sister and protect her son.
- Athénaïs LhéryThe farmer's pretty, vain only daughter, raised above her station, who loves her cousin Bénédict and wants admiration.
- Countess de RaimbaultValentine's proud, bitter mother, a merchant's daughter who clings to rank, money and the memory of Empire glory.
- Monsieur de LansacA polished diplomat and Valentine's fiancé, charming in manner and heavily in debt, who wants her fortune and no complications.
- Father LhéryA kind, prosperous farmer who still wears an old-fashioned pigtail and wishes to see his daughter married to his educated nephew.
- Pierre BluttyA strong cattle dealer's son who has courted Athénaïs for a year and resents her educated cousin.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read today.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Valentina in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Valentina
by George Sand · 1832
A kiss at a village dance binds a count's fiancée to a peasant's son in the Black Valley of Berry.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A kiss in front of three thousand villagers starts it all. In Valentine, George Sand takes you to the Black Valley of Berry, where a farmer's educated nephew and a count's young fiancée meet at a May fair.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A May fair opens the Black Valley
The novel begins in the sunken lanes and thatched villages of Berry, a quiet corner of France that revolutions have barely touched. Sand describes it with love before she brings in a single character. Then she moves to the farm of Grangeneuve, where the day of the great May fair is about to begin.
In a low farmhouse room, sixteen-year-old Athénaïs dresses in tulle and moiré while her mother feeds the ducks. Her father, the prosperous Father Lhéry, warms his legs at a straw fire and still wears the old-fashioned pigtail that marks his rise. The family has money, and they spend it on show while scolding their daughter over a spare bundle of firewood.
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What is Valentine by George Sand about?
It tells of Valentine de Raimbault, a young noblewoman engaged to a diplomat, and Bénédict, a farmer's educated nephew. Their meeting at a May fair draws them toward a love that class, family and duty forbid.
Who is Louise in Valentine?
Louise is Valentine's older half sister, driven out of the family by Valentine's mother fifteen years earlier. She returns in secret to Berry, stays at the Lhéry farm, and wants only to see her sister again before the wedding.
When was Valentine written and is it based on real events?
Sand published it in 1832, as her second novel, after Indiana. The Black Valley of Berry is real, and her preface says it comes from her own childhood memories of that countryside.
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).
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