SOURCE: "Chapter XV," in Story of My Life: The Autobiography of George Sand, edited by Thelma Jurgrau, State University of New York Press, 1854-55, pp. 924-25.

In the following passage, Sand explains the impetus behind her writing of Indiana. Denying charges that the novel is autobiographical or that it attempts to critique an entire social system. Sand claims that Indiana was the result of an emotional reaction against enslavement in any form or shape.

When I began writing Indiana, I felt a very vivid and distinct emotion that resembled nothing I had experienced in my previous attempts. But that emotion was more painful than pleasurable. I wrote the book all in one spurt, without any outline, as I have already said, and literally without knowing where I was going, without even realizing the social problem I was approaching. I was not a Saint-Simonian and never had been, although...