Graham Travers

Born Margaret Georgina Todd in 1859, she was a Scottish physician and author who published fiction under the pseudonym Graham Travers. During her studies at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, she wrote Mona Maclean, Medical Student, a novel praised for its vivid, believable picture of a woman training to become a doctor.

She had briefly worked as a teacher before turning to medicine, and she went on to serve as an assistant medical officer at the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children. Even after her identity became known, she continued to publish as Graham Travers, and her later books helped build a body of work closely tied to women’s lives, education, and independence.

Todd is also remembered beyond literature: she is widely credited with suggesting the scientific term isotope to chemist Frederick Soddy in 1913. Late in life she wrote The Life of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake, a biography of the pioneering doctor and reformer with whom she was closely associated.