Emily Gerard
(Jane) Emily Gerard (7 May 1849 – 11 January 1905) was a nineteenth-century author best known for the influence her collections of Transylvanian folklore had on Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Life
Emily Gerard was born in Scotland, the daughter of Archibald Gerard and Euphemia Erskine Robison (daughter of Sir John Robison).
She is sometimes referred to as Emily Gerard, Mrs de Laszowska, Emily Laszowska, Emily Gerard, or Emily de Laszowska Gerard, after her husband, Chevalier Mieczislas de Laszowski, a Polish cavalry officer serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Her familiarity with Transylvanian folklore came about as a result of his stationing in the town of Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben in Hungarian; now known by its Romanian name of Sibiu) which is now located in the Romanian province of Transylvania, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before 1918.
She reviewed German literature for the Times, having been educated in Tyrol. She spent much of her life in Austria, where she met and befriended Mark Twain, to whom The Extermination of Love (1901) is dedicated.
