Mary Abigail Dodge (March 31, 1833 – August 17, 1896) was an American writer and essayist, who wrote under the pseudonym Gail Hamilton.

Editor Gamaliel Bailey read her work in 1856 and, by 1858, she had moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as a governess for his children.

She disliked attention, however, and chose the pen name Gail Hamilton, combining the last part of her middle name with her place of birth.

When asked for a description for a compilation about eminent women of the day, she responded with a variation of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Bells" that she was "Neither man nor woman / I am neither brute nor human / I am a ghoul!

"[2] One of her admirers later wrote, "She is incisive, even combative, by nature, and thoroughly enjoys a good, hot old-fashioned controversies.

Dodge was also interested in publishing matters and criticized the assumption that women writers were "an eternal child" when it came to understanding the business side of authorship.

"[9] After months of back and forth, during which Dodge came to distrust Ticknor and Fields and wrote to other authors including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe to discredit them, she anonymously published A Battle of the Books in 1870 chronicling her negative experiences.