Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon

Mary Charlotte Julia Leith, née Gordon (1840–1926), best known as Mrs Disney Leith, was a British novelist and traveller, as well as a childhood friend and cousin of the poet Swinburne. After her husband's death she visited Iceland numerous times, writing about the country and translating works from Icelandic.

Life Leith was born Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon, in 1840, in London, and was the daughter of Mary Agnes Blanche (born Ashburnham) and Sir Henry Percy Gordon, Bart. Her father had been a leading mathematician when he was at Cambridge. Her grandfathers were General Sir James Willoughby Gordon and George Ashburnham, the Earl of Ashburnham. She was brought up in the family seat of Northcourt House at Shorwell on the Isle of Wight, a mansion that stood inside its own park.

Her first cousin was the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, who lived nearby on the Isle of Wight. He was frail but "fired with nervous energy and fearlessness to the point of being reckless." They went riding and wrote Jacobean plays together in the library at Northcourt. She was educated at home, mastering several languages in addition to ancient Greek and Latin. She learned mathematics and was a talented pianist and organist. The coded correspondence between herself and Swinburne ceased until her husband's death. Her last three novels were part of a family saga advocating Christian values and knowing your place. The first was Champion Sandy in 1910, then Black Martinmas two years later and the last Lachlan’s Widow in 1913. They were all anonymous as distinct from her 1917 work which remains well known under her nom de plume of "Mrs. Disney Leith". The Boyhood of Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in America and London, was based on her memories and their surviving letters.