Sophie Suzanne Brzeska or Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (born Zofia Brzeska; 8 June 1872 – 17 March 1925) was a Polish writer and artistic muse most noted for being the companion of the artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Brzeska and Gaudier met in 1909 in Paris and began an intense relationship. Henri annexed her surname although they never married. Much of what scholars and historians have been able to trace about Sophie Brzeska has come from her personal correspondence with Gaudier. H. S. Ede acquired her papers after her death and drew extensively on her writing when he published A Life of Gaudier-Brzeska (1930). Early years Sophie Brzeska was born near Kraków, Poland in 1873 to a family of 11. She described her mother as "weary" and her father as "womanising", both believing she was a "burden needing to be married off." She resisted and fled Poland for Paris to become a writer. She accepted a succession of jobs as governess, one of which involved her living in the United States for several years. These ventures with other people's families left her contemplating suicide. Life with Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Brzeska and Gaudier met in 1909 at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, and began an intense symbiotic relationship. Gaudier (born 1891) described her in a letter to a friend as "a Polish ex-governess twice his age." Brzeska was a companion and her relationship with Gaudier resembled a co-dependency because both suffered from mental health issues and stress brought on by poverty. Henri was devoted to Sophie, even taking her last name as his, but Sophie often was dismissive and cold toward Henri's romantic overtures (according to Ede, they never had sex or only once or twice or rarely). They were often apart, and Sophie would buy Henri prostitutes for his enjoyment instead of having sexual relations with him. Writings Brzeska referred constantly to her "work" and aspirations to be a published writer. She wrote a number of versions of her autobiography entitled Matka but nothing in her own words was published until 2008. The book Matka and Other Writings (London: Mercury Graphics; includes some texts translated from French by Gillian Raffles) is from manuscript sheets which have lain unpublished for over 50 years. One part of this group of papers is a version of Matka, and it includes her first meeting and her life with Henri Gaudier, and their adoption of the name Gaudier-Brzeska. It contains