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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the life your family prepares for you leaves no room for who you are?
Inside an old Italian noble house, Gabriel grows up as the heir on whom the family's hopes rest. Serious, thoughtful, and eager to learn, Gabriel wants to do right. But a strict education and a carefully planned future begin to raise questions about identity, duty, and the freedom to choose.
Prince Jules, Gabriel's grandfather, holds to the plan that protects the family's inheritance. Gabriel's cousin Astolphe stands close to that inheritance too. In Gabriel, George Sand brings these pressures into a prose drama of speeches and scenes, asking whether the role society gives a person can ever contain the whole self.
What you’ll discover
- An heir under pressure Enter a household where inheritance shapes Gabriel's upbringing and weighs heavily on the future.
- A questioning mind Follow a thoughtful young person beginning to question the role others have chosen.
- Family bonds under strain Meet Prince Jules and Astolphe, whose wishes draw family loyalty toward competing claims.
- Drama carried by speech Feel the tension through scenes and arguments rather than a rush of events.
- Freedom beyond a role Explore Sand's challenge to the limits society places on men and women.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love lively dialogue, stories of disguise and hidden identity, and Italian settings full of duels and carnival. It suits anyone drawn to what makes a person who they are.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A secret waits at the castle
- An heir refuses the family lie
- Two cousins choose friendship over hatred
- A costume unsettles a friendship
- Secret love meets a suspicious household
- Jealousy turns refuge into confinement
- Training cannot settle who someone is
- Masks reveal what speech can hide
- Family and love press against freedom
Who’s who
- GabrielA girl raised as a boy, brave, thoughtful, and honest, who longs for friendship and freedom and cannot accept her grandfather's lie.
- Prince Jules de BramanteThe old, proud grandfather who built the secret to keep his family's titles and wealth in his own line.
- AstolpheGabriel's penniless, warm-hearted cousin and tavern brawler, who becomes her closest friend and then her jealous lover.
- The TutorThe abbot who taught Gabriel, keeps the secret, and quietly doubts the prince's design.
- MarcThe loyal old servant who follows Gabriel everywhere, protective and often bewildered by her changes of dress.
- SettimiaAstolphe's proud, bitter mother, who resents his wife and clings to her confessor and her pride.
- FaustinaA fashionable courtesan who flirts, schemes, and shows a surprising honesty about her own life.
- AntonioA rich young rake who pursues the lovely stranger at the party and becomes a rival to Astolphe.
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Gabriel
by George Sand · 1839
Raised as a boy, a girl enters a tavern fight and meets a friend who comes to love her.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.”
In short
What if your whole life were built around a secret you never chose? In Gabriel, a boy of sixteen gallops a black horse across the grounds of Bramante Castle, fearless, quick, and proud.
Gabriel at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 40 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 38,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1839by George Sand
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A grandfather builds a lie around his grandchild
The play opens at Bramante Castle. Prince Jules, a man past eighty, has come in a litter to see the grandson he has kept at a distance. He hides in a side room while the abbot, Gabriel's tutor, prepares the ground. The prince wants to know one thing. Has his plan worked?
Only four people share the secret: the prince, the tutor, the old servant Marc, and a nurse. Jules does not want his titles and wealth to pass to the younger branch of the family. So he has raised his heir as a boy, under the name Gabriel, in a house with no women. The walls show women seized, sold, and burned. Every lesson was meant to make the child despise the female lot.
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Details
- First published
- 1839
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Sand, George. Gabriel. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabriel.
Sand, G. (2026). Gabriel. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabriel (Original work published 1839)
Sand, George. Gabriel. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabriel.
@book{sand2026gabriel,
author = {Sand, George},
title = {Gabriel},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gabriel},
note = {First published 1839}
}
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What is Gabriel by George Sand about?
It follows a young heir raised as a boy by a grandfather who wants to keep the family estate whole. Once Gabriel learns the truth, she seeks out her rival cousin Astolphe, and their friendship and love bring joy and danger.
Is Gabriel a novel or a play?
George Sand called it a novel in dialogue. It is written like a play, with a prologue, five parts, scenes, and stage notes, and it is meant to be read as much as performed.
Why does Gabriel's grandfather hide the truth?
Prince Jules wants his titles and wealth to pass in his own line and not to the younger branch of the family. Under the inheritance law of the majorat, a male heir keeps the estate together.
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).
“I don’t feel that my soul has a sex”
More by George Sand
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