Brada (writer)

{{Infobox writer

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Henrietta Consuelo Sansom

| honorific_suffix = Countess of Quigini Puliga

| image = Brada.jpg

| caption = 1911

| pseudonym = Brada

| birth_name =

| birth_date = 24 April 1847

| birth_place = Paris, France

| death_date = 5 August 1938

| death_place = Paris, France

| resting_place = Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France

| occupation = writer

| language = French, English

| nationality = French

| alma_mater =

| genre = {{cslist|Chronicle|novel|short story|script|biography|memoir}}

| subject =

| notable_works = {{cslist|Madame d’Épone|Notes sur l’Angleterre}}

| spouse = {{marriage|Efisio Quigini Puliga|1868|1876|end=died}}

| children = 2

| parents =

| relatives =

| awards = {{cslist|Montyon Prize|Jouy Prize|Xavier Marmier Prize|Legion of Honour}}

| signature = Signature de Brada.png

}}

Henrietta Consuelo Sansom, Countess of Quigini Puliga (24 April 1847 – 5 August 1938) was a French writer and novelist known better by the pseudonym, Brada, a shortened version of her earlier pen name, Bradamente. She also wrote on occasion as Mosca. In 1925, she was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The Académie Française awarded her the Montyon Prize in 1890, the Jouy Prize in 1895, and the Xavier Marmier Prize in 1934.

Early life and education

Henrietta (also known as, "Marie") Consuelo Sansom was born 24 April 1847, in Paris.{{efn|Date of birth indicated in her Legion of Honor file, where she bears the first name of "Marie" by which she was sometimes known.{{cite web |title=QUIGINI-PULIGA DE |publisher=Léonore Base |url=https://www.leonore.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/ui/ |website=www.leonore.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=fr}}}} She was the daughter of a wealthy British expatriate, Charles Sansom. Brada spent most of her childhood boarding in a girls' private school located near the Arc de Triomphe.{{efn|This was the Pension Beaujon, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, where César Franck taught music.{{cite book |last1=Blakeman |first1=Edward |title=Taffanel: Genius of the Flute |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-517099-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LxrnDS6lWbQC&pg=PA50 |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=en}}}} Being born out of wedlock, she found herself destitute upon the death of her father, whose inheritance was shared by his legitimate children.

Career

In 1868, she married an Italian count twenty years her senior, Efisio Quigini Puliga (1827-1876),La Formazione della diplomazia nazionale (1861-1915). Repertorio bio-bibliografico dei funzionari del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, University of Lecce, Department of Historical and Social Sciences, Rome: Polygraphic Institute and State Mint, 1987, p. 605. adviser to the Italian Legation in Paris, who died in 1876 following a long illness. To provide for the education of her two young children, she began to write chronicles and short stories under the pseudonym "Bradamente", later abbreviated to "Brada", which were published in the Journal des débats, Le Figaro, the Revue de Paris as well as in several other periodicals such as La Vie parisienne and L'Illustration where she used the pseudonym, "Mosca".Heilly, Georges d'. Dictionary of pseudonyms, Paris: Rouquette, 1868, p. 54. (in French) Her novels and short stories, which soon appeared in bookstores, met with great success and received awards from the Académie Française with the Montyon Prize in 1890, the Jouy Prize in 1895, and the Xavier Marmier Prize in 1934. She thus continued to write until at the age of over 80, leading a simple life in Paris interspersed with stays in Italy.Velde, Mme. M. S. van de. French Fiction of To-day, Vol. II. London: Rischler, 1891, pp. 174-176.

The success of her novels was due in part to the aristocratic circles that she had participated in, first while in Paris and London, where she had lived with her father, then in Berlin, where she had followed her husband in his diplomatic career. They were largely based on "cosmopolitan high-society intrigues" depicting "supremely aristocratic passions and vices".Angenot, Marc, "Des Romans pour les femmes : un secteur du discours social en 1889", Études littéraires, vol. 16, no. 3, 1983, p. 334. Often compared to Gyp, Brada was appreciated by her contemporary readers for her "spontaneity and freshness" as well as for her "elegance and distinction".Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, 6 August 1938, p. 2, col. 7.

She dabbled in different genres. Her first book, Madame de Sévigné: Her Correspondents and Contemporaries, written in English and published in London in 1873, was a study of the correspondents and contemporaries of Madame de Sévigné. Brada's remarks on the decline of the aristocracy and the emancipation of women, which appeared in her Notes sur Londres (Notes on London) in 1895, caught the attention of Henry James.{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Henry |title=The Awkward Age |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-283704-2 |page=xii-xiii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SPQfypFKHOIC&pg=PAxii |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=en}}

In later life, she published two memories, one in English, the other in French. In the first, published in 1899 under the title My Father and I, she evoked her early childhood as well as her first steps in British high society in the company of her father, to whom she felt bound by a great complicity."Comptes rendus", The Literary World, Vol. XXXI, Boston: E. H. Hames & Co., Jan. - Dec. 1900, pp. 54-55.The New York Times, 15 April 1900. In the second, entitled Souvenirs d'une petite Second Empire and published in 1921, she recounted her memories of boarding school and, among many other anecdotes, the visits she made to Ewelina Hańska, Balzac's widow.Jarry, Paul, Le Dernier Logis de Balzac, Paris, S. Kra, 1924, p. 61.{{cite book |title=Literature |date=1900 |page=315 |volume=6 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VGFDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA315 |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=en |chapter=A FOND PAPA}} {{PD-notice}}

Death

File:Père-Lachaise - Division 46 - Brada 01.jpg

She died 5 August 1938, Paris,Le Figaro, 6 August 1938, p. 2, col. 5. and was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery (section 46).{{cite web |title=Daily burial register, no. 1256 |url=http://archives.paris.fr/r/216/cimetieres/ |website=archives.paris.fr |publisher=Cimetières - Archives de Paris |access-date=26 January 2022 |page=6 |date=8 August 1939}}

Awards

1890, Montyon Prize (Madame d’Épone){{cite web |title=BRADA |url=https://www.academie-francaise.fr/brada |website=www.academie-francaise.fr |publisher=Académie française |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=fr}}
1895, Jouy Prize (Notes sur l’Angleterre)
23 July 1925, Chevalier, Legion of Honour
1934, Xavier Marmier Prize

== Selected works ==

=Chronicles, novels, short stories=

Leurs Excellences, 1878
Mylord et mylady, 1884
Compromise, 1889
"lzac", Paris, S. Kra, 1924, p. 61., L'Irrémédiable, 1891
À la dérive, 1893
Notes sur Londres, 1895
Jeunes Madames, preface by Anatole France, 1895
Joug d'amour, 1895
Les Épouseurs, 1896
[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k810821.pdf Lettres d'une amoureuse], 1897
L'Ombre, 1898
Petits et grands, 1898
Une impasse, 1899
Comme les autres, 1902
Retour du flot, (Collection Nelson) 1903{{cite book |last1=Hawkins |first1=Eleanor E. |title=The United States Catalog: Supplement, January, 1918-June, 1921; Books, Pamphlets, Documents |date=1921 |publisher=H. W. Wilson Company |page=220 |volume=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ZYsAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA220 |access-date=26 January 2022 |language=en}} {{PD-notice}}
Isolée, 1904
Les Beaux jours de Flavien, 1905
[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5681602v.pdf Ninette et sa grand'mère], 1906
Disparu, 1906
Les Amantes, 1907
Malgré l'amour, 1907
L'Àme libre, 1908
[https://archive.org/details/labrcheparbrad00puliuoft La Brèche], 1909
Monsieur Carotte. La Petite bergère. Le Bal des pantins, 1910
Madame d'Épone, 1922
Après la tourmente, 1926
Cœur solitaire, 1928
La Maison de la peur, 1930
Prise au piège, 1937