A Forgotten Voice: Moral Guidance in the Novels of Mary Gordon (Mrs. Disney Leith), with a Bibliography

Abstract

Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon (1840-1926) was the author of fifteen novels, one jointly with the poet Swinburne, her cousin and close companion from childhood through to young adulthood. Her publications spanned most of her adult life: her first novel was published when she was 19 and her last when she was 80. She also published three volumes of verse and a memoir of Swinburne as well as two books on her pony- trekking travels in Iceland and two translations from the Icelandic.

Unlike some of her contemporaries, Mary Gordon had no financial imperative to write for publication. Her family was wealthy and she married a returning hero of the Sikh wars, Colonel (later, General) Robert William Disney Leith, the inheritor of a neighboring Aberdeenshire estate. Moreover, her marriage settlement, of which Swinburne was a trustee, ensured her financial independence for life. Her motives for writing and for wanting her work to be read must be deduced from the content of her published work. A bibliography is attached.