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LĂ©lia, novel by George Sand, published in 1833. It shocked contemporary readers with a heroine who, like Sand herself, was an iconoclastic, intellectual woman who scorned society’s rules. Independent and sensual, LĂ©lia has had many lovers. Now repelled by physical passion, which represents the means by which men dominate women, LĂ©lia tells her sister PulchĂ©rie, a courtesan, that neither celibacy nor love affairs satisfy her. PulchĂ©rie suggests that LĂ©lia become a courtesan, that she may...