Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (July 1804 - 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and socialist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more popular than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era.