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Brada (writer)

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Henrietta Consuelo Sansom
Countess of Quigini Puliga
19111911
Born24 April 1847
Paris, France
Died5 August 1938
Paris, France
Resting placePère Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France
Pen nameBrada
Occupationwriter
LanguageFrench, English
NationalityFrench
Genre
  • Chronicle
  • novel
  • short story
  • script
  • biography
  • memoir
Notable works
  • Madame d’Épone
  • Notes sur l’Angleterre
Notable awards
Spouse Efisio Quigini Puliga ​ ​(m. 1868; died 1876)​
Children2
Signature

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. 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. 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), 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". 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.

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". Often compared to Gyp, Brada was appreciated by her contemporary readers for her "spontaneity and freshness" as well as for her "elegance and distinction".

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.

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. 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.

Death

Brada's tomb

She died 5 August 1938, Paris, and was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery (section 46).

Awards

  • 1890, Montyon Prize (Madame d’Épone)
  • 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
  • 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
  • Isolée, 1904
  • Les Beaux jours de Flavien, 1905
  • Ninette et sa grand'mère, 1906
  • Disparu, 1906
  • Les Amantes, 1907
  • Malgré l'amour, 1907
  • L'Àme libre, 1908
  • 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

Scripts

  • Le Coup de feu, Pathé frères, 1911
  • Le Geste qui accuse, Pathé frères, 1913

Biographies

Memoirs

  • My Father and I. A book for daughters, 1899 (in English)
  • Souvenirs d'une petite Second Empire, 1921

Notes

  1. Date of birth indicated in her Legion of Honor file, where she bears the first name of "Marie" by which she was sometimes known.
  2. This was the Pension Beaujon, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, where César Franck taught music.

References

  1. ^ "QUIGINI-PULIGA DE". www.leonore.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr (in French). Léonore Base. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  2. Blakeman, Edward (2005). Taffanel: Genius of the Flute. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517099-3. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  3. 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.
  4. Heilly, Georges d'. Dictionary of pseudonyms, Paris: Rouquette, 1868, p. 54. (in French)
  5. Velde, Mme. M. S. van de. French Fiction of To-day, Vol. II. London: Rischler, 1891, pp. 174-176.
  6. Angenot, Marc, "Des Romans pour les femmes : un secteur du discours social en 1889", Études littéraires, vol. 16, no. 3, 1983, p. 334.
  7. Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, 6 August 1938, p. 2, col. 7.
  8. James, Henry (1999). The Awkward Age. Oxford University Press. p. xii-xiii. ISBN 978-0-19-283704-2. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  9. "Comptes rendus", The Literary World, Vol. XXXI, Boston: E. H. Hames & Co., Jan. - Dec. 1900, pp. 54-55.
  10. The New York Times, 15 April 1900.
  11. Jarry, Paul, Le Dernier Logis de Balzac, Paris, S. Kra, 1924, p. 61.
  12. "A FOND PAPA". Literature. Vol. 6. 1900. p. 315. Retrieved 26 January 2022. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  13. Le Figaro, 6 August 1938, p. 2, col. 5.
  14. "Daily burial register, no. 1256". archives.paris.fr. Cimetières - Archives de Paris. 8 August 1939. p. 6. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  15. ^ "BRADA". www.academie-francaise.fr (in French). Académie française. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  16. Hawkins, Eleanor E. (1921). The United States Catalog: Supplement, January, 1918-June, 1921; Books, Pamphlets, Documents. Vol. 1. H. W. Wilson Company. p. 220. Retrieved 26 January 2022. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
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