Mary Ann Harris Gay was an American writer and poet from Decatur, Georgia, known for her Civil War memoir Life in Dixie During the War (1897). This described events in Atlanta during the war. Author Margaret Mitchell said this memoir inspired some of her passages in her novel Gone with the Wind (1936). Gay also published a book of poetry (1858), which she republished after the war to raise money to help support her mother and sister.

Mary Ann Kilner was a prolific English writer of children's books in the late 18th century. The most famous was The Adventures of a Pincushion. Together, she and her sister-in-law, Dorothy Kilner, published over thirty books. Mary Ann published under the name "S. S.", which stood for her home in Spital Square, London.

Mary Antin was an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization.

Mary Ashley Townsend was an American poet and writer. She was the first American invited to join the "Liceo Hidalgo", a prestigious Mexican literary club.

Mary Astell was an English protofeminist writer, philosopher, and rhetorician. Her advocacy of equal educational opportunities for women has earned her the title "the first English feminist." Astell is primarily remembered as one of England's inaugural advocates for women's rights. Her works, particularly "A Serious Proposal to the Ladies" and "Some Reflections Upon Marriage," argue for the fundamental intellectual equality between men and women. Her philosophical writings are thought to have influenced subsequent generations of educated women, including the literary group known as the Bluestockings. Astell, who never married, formed the majority of her close personal relationships with women. During the early 1700s, she withdrew from public life and dedicated herself to planning and managing a charitable school for girls. Astell considered herself a self-reliant, modern female; one who was on a definite mission to rescue her sex from the oppression of males.

Mary Augusta Ward was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward. She worked to improve education for the poor and she became the founding President of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League.

Mary Baker Eddy was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science. She wrote numerous books and articles, the most notable of which were Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and Manual of The Mother Church. Other works were edited posthumously into the Prose Works Other than Science and Health.

Mary Borden was an American-British novelist and poet whose work drew on her experiences as a war nurse. She was the second of the three children of William Borden, who had made a fortune in Colorado silver mining in the late 1870s.

Mary Brunton was a Scottish novelist, whose work has been seen as redefining femininity. Fay Weldon praised it as "rich in invention, ripe with incident, shrewd in comment, and erotic in intention and fact."

Mary Caroline Crawford was an American author, social worker and reformer, and suffragist. Her many books about the history of Boston and New England caused her to be called "Boston's social historian".