Margaret Maria Gordon

Margaret Maria Gordon
photograph of Margaret Maria Gordon by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, probably taken in 1843
BornOctober 1823 Edit this on Wikidata
DiedNovember 8, 1907 Edit this on Wikidata
Melrose Edit this on Wikidata
Spouse(s)John Gordon Cumming Skene of Pitlurg and Dyce Edit this on Wikidata
Parents

Margaret Maria Brewster Gordon (October 1823 – November 8, 1907) was a Scottish novelist and author.

Margaret Maria Brewster was born in October 1823, the daughter of renowned scientist Sir David Brewster and Juliet MacPherson Brewster, daughter of James Macpherson, author of the notorious Ossian poems. Among her father's interests was early photography, and he worked with photo pioneers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. Hill and Adamson's photograph of her, probably from 1843, makes her one of the earliest Scottish women to be photographed. In 1860, she married John Gordon-Cumming-Skene of Pitlurg and Parkhill.

Margaret Gordon's works were largely religious and instructional. She wrote biographies of her father, her husband, and Hay MacDowall Grant. The Dictionary of National Biography describes her memoir of her father as a "sympathetic but largely domestic biography which remains the major contemporary source for Brewster's life" She also wrote several novels, including Lady Elinor Mordaunt (1860), whose plot was described as "The heroine first reforms a lord, then carries on her good work among the negroes."

Margaret Maria Gordon died in Melrose on November 8, 1907.

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Author: Margaret Maria Gordon". www.victorianresearch.org. Retrieved 2026-10-04.
  2. ↑ Gordon, Margaret Maria (1881). The home life of Sir David Brewster. Boston Public Library. Edinburgh : D. Douglas.
  3. 1 2 Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6, April 24, 1920, page 156.
  4. 1 2 3 Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (2004-09-23). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3371. Retrieved 2026-10-04. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ↑ "Mrs Margaret Maria (Brewster) Gordon. Daughter of Sir David Brewster; wife of Rev. Robert Gordon [b] by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson | National Galleries of Scotland". www.nationalgalleries.org. Retrieved 2026-10-05.
  6. ↑ Bulletin of Bibliography September-December 1946: Vol 19 Iss 1. Internet Archive. September–December 1946.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ↑ Aberdeen Weekly Journal, Wednesday, 13 November 1907
  8. 1 2 3 4 Faculty of Advocates (Scotland). Library; Halkett, Samuel; Hjaltalin, Jon Andresson; Jamieson, T. H. (Thomas Hill) (1863). Catalogue of the printed books in the library of the Faculty of advocates . University of California Libraries. Edinburgh London : W. Blackwood and sons.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Alston, R. C. (1990). A checklist of women writers, 1801-1900 : fiction, verse, drama. Internet Archive. Boston, Mass. : G.K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-7295-5.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kirk, John Foster; Allibone, Samuel Austin (1902). A supplement to Allibone's Critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors : containing over thirty-seven thousand articles (authors), and enumerating over ninety-three thousand titles. Robarts - University of Toronto. Philadelphia : Lippincott.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  11. ↑ Davis, Gwenn; Joyce, Beverly A. (1989). Personal writings by women to 1900: a bibliography of American and British writers (1st University of Oklahoma Press ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2206-9.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kirk, John Foster; Allibone, Samuel Austin (1902). A supplement to Allibone's Critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors : containing over thirty-seven thousand articles (authors), and enumerating over ninety-three thousand titles. Robarts - University of Toronto. Philadelphia : Lippincott.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)