Consuelo

799 pp. "Consuelo is a novel by George Sand, first published serially in 1842-1843 in La Revue indépendante, a periodical founded in 1841 by Sand, Pierre Leroux and Louis Viardot. According to The Nuttall Encyclopædia, it is "[Sand's] masterpiece; the impersonation of the triumph of moral purity over manifold temptations." The character of Consuelo was supposedly modeled after Louis Viardot's wife, the soprano Pauline Viardot. Pauline Viardot was a good friend of both Sand's and of her lover, Frédéric Chopin. Consuelo is a Spanish girl abandoned in Italy whose voice attracts the old maestro Porpora. Through him she is presented to Count Zustiniani. The latter, after her successful début on the stage, falls in love with her, but is repulsed. When her early lover Angoletto forgets her, Consuelo is sent by Porpora to the home of a German family in Bohemia. Her entrance into this household prepares the way for the sequel, La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1843).[1]"