Dorothea Gerard

Dorothea Gerard was born in 1855 at Rochsoles House in New Monkland, Lanark, Scotland, the youngest daughter of Colonel Archibald Gerard (1812–1880) of Rochsoles, Lanarkshire, and Euphemia Erskine née Robison (1818–1870), the oldest daughter of the renowned inventor Sir John Robison (1778–1843). She had three sisters and three brothers including General Sir Montagu Gilbert Gerard (1842–1905).[3] Dorothea Gerard was also descended from Alexander Gerard (1728–1795) a philosophical writer, Archibald Alison (1757–1839) a Scottish Episcopalian minister and writer, and Gilbert Gerard (1760–1815) a minister of the Church of Scotland and theological writer. Her sister Emily Gerard born in 1849 at Chesters, Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, Scotland was also a novelist, and the two collaborated on several novels. The family background was originally Scottish Episcopalian, but when their mother converted to Catholicism in 1848 her children were raised as Catholic.[3]

In the 1861 Scotland Census, Dorothea is recorded as living at Rochsoles House in Lanarkshire with her parents, her sisters Anne, Emily and Mary, and a staff of 11 servants; they also have several visitors happening to stay at the house at the time of the census-taker's visit.[4] The Gerard family lived in Vienna from 1863 to 1866. Dorothea was home-schooled until the death of her mother in 1870 at which time her older and now married sister Emily assumed custody of her and Dorothea joined her sister in Austria where she continued her education studying European languages at the convent of the Sacré Coeur at Riedenburg in Austria.[3]

The two sisters Dorothea and Emily became active participants in the British literary community in the latter half of the nineteenth century, both working collaboratively and independently.[2]

In 1877 Dorothea began to write novels, with her first major work being a collaboration with her sister Emily Gerard under the joint pseudonym E. D. Gerard. Reata; or What's in a Name (1880) concerned a Mexican girl's attempts to adapt to European customs and was published in Blackwood’s Magazine. Three subsequent novels published by the pair in the same magazine were Beggar My Neighbour (1882), The Waters of Hercules (1885), and A Sensitive Plant (1891). Referring to one of their joint novels, The Saturday Review called them "one of the most fascinating of our lady novelists."[5]

On 12 April 1887 at Marburg Dorothea Gerard married Captain (later Major-General) Julius Longard of the 7th Austrian Lancers[6] in the Austro-Hungarian Army following which she spent much of her subsequent life in Austria and Galicia in Eastern Europe where she also set many of her novels, many of which involved romantic liaisons between European nobility.[7] Following her marriage Gerard feared losing her native tongue and read and wrote in English as much as possible.[8] In 1894 her husband was awarded the title 'Longard de Longgarde'. Together they had a daughter, Dorothée Stanislaw Julia (1888–1943). Following her marriage her collaboration with her sister Emily ceased[3] and Dorothea Gerard became successful as a writer of novels in her own right, including Recha, Etelka's Vow and A Queen of Curds and Cream. Her tale 'My Nightmare', from her book of short stories On The Way Through (1892), has been anthologised several times in collections of Victorian horror and suspense.[9][10][11] As Dorothea Longard de Longgarde she became arguably the more successful and certainly the more prolific novelist of the two sisters, so much so that in 1893 she was interviewed for 'Portraits of Celebrities at Different Ages' in The Strand Magazine.[2][6]

Dorothea Gerard died after a long illness aged 60 in September 1915 in Vienna where she had been living in strict retirement for some years. She was buried in the family vault at the Vienna Central Cemetery.[1]