Emily Gerard (1849–1905)

Nineteenth-century author best known for the influence her collections of Transylvanian folklore had on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Emily Gerard was born in Scotland to a wealthy family, and lived for several years in Vienna. She was educated at home and at a convent in Austria. Emily wrote novels and travel books, sometimes in collaboration with her younger sister Dorothea. In 1869, Emily married Mieczysław Łaszowski, a Polish cavalry officer serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army, 20 years her senior, with whom she had two sons and spent many years in various parts of central Europe. Her 1888 book The Land beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures and Fancies from Transylvania, provided the English public with a survey of the customs and traditions of what was then an exotic location.