Mary Diana Dods

Mary Diana Dods was a Scottish writer, usually dated to about 1790–1830, who published work under the pen name David Lyndsay and later lived publicly as Walter Sholto Douglas. Modern scholarship has brought these identities together, revealing a life that was long obscured by pseudonyms, scattered records, and conflicting accounts of the final years.

Dods is known for plays, stories, and other literary work from the Romantic period, and is often noted for connections to the wider literary world of the time, including Mary Shelley. That combination of literary talent, self-reinvention, and historical mystery has made the story especially compelling to later readers.

The exact date of death is not completely settled in the sources I found. Some references place the death in 1829, while others give 1830 or describe the person as dying sometime between late 1829 and late 1830. Because of that uncertainty, it is safest to describe Dods as a writer of the early 19th century whose legacy continues to grow as more readers discover the work and the life behind it.