Henrietta Consuelo Sansom, Countess of Quigini Puliga (born on April 24, 1847, and died on August 5, 1938), was a French writer and novelist. She is better known by the pseudonym Brada, which is a short form of her earlier pen name, Bradamente. She also used the name Mosca for some of her writing. In 1925, she was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour. The Académie Française gave 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 on April 24, 1847, in Paris. Her father was Charles Sansom, a wealthy British expatriate. During her childhood, Henrietta lived in a private school for girls near the Arc de Triomphe. After her father’s death, she became without money or resources because the inheritance he left was divided among his legal children, not her.

Career

In 1868, she married an Italian count named Efisio Quigini Puliga (1827–1876), who was twenty years older than her. He worked as an advisor to the Italian Legation in Paris and died in 1876 after a long illness. To support the education of her two young children, she began writing stories and chronicles under the name "Bradamente," which was later shortened to "Brada." These works were published in newspapers and magazines such as Journal des débats, Le Figaro, Revue de Paris, La Vie parisienne, and L'Illustration. She also used the name "Mosca" in some publications. Her books became popular and earned awards from the Académie Française, including the Montyon Prize in 1890, the Jouy Prize in 1895, and the Xavier Marmier Prize in 1934. She continued writing well into her 80s, living a simple life in Paris and spending time in Italy.

Her books were successful partly because of her connections to aristocratic circles. She lived in Paris and London with her father and later moved to Berlin with her husband, who worked in diplomacy. Her stories often focused on the lives, passions, and challenges of the aristocracy. She was often compared to a writer named Gyp and was admired by readers for her "spontaneity and freshness" as well as her "elegance and distinction."

She wrote in different types of books. Her first book, Madame de Sévigné: Her Correspondents and Contemporaries, written in English and published in London in 1873, studied the people who knew Madame de Sévigné. In her book Notes sur Londres (Notes on London), published in 1895, she wrote about the decline of the aristocracy and the growing freedom for women. These ideas caught the attention of the writer Henry James.

Later in life, she wrote two memoirs. The first, My Father and I (1899), written in English, described her childhood and early experiences in British high society with her father. The second, Souvenirs d'une petite Second Empire (1921), written in French, shared her memories of boarding school and included stories about visits to Ewelina Hańska, the wife of the writer Honoré de Balzac.