Mary Alsop King Waddington (April 28, 1833 - June 30, 1923) was an American author. She particularly wrote about her life as the wife of a French diplomat.Mary was born in New York City, New York on April 28, 1839 the daughter of Charles King (1789-1867), an American academic, politician, newspaper editor and the ninth president of Columbia College (now Columbia University) and his second wife, Henrietta Liston Low (1799-1882). Her paternal granddaughter was U.S. Senator Rufus King (1755-1827), the Federalist candidate for both Vice President (1804 and 1808) and President of the United States (1816). Her maternal grandfather was Nicholas Low (1739-1826), a New York merchant and developer.

In Artists, Writers, and Diplomats' Wives: Impressions of Women Travelers in Imperial Russia, the experiences and impressions of sixteen European and North American women who both lived and traveled in Russia during times of peace and war come alive. All these women had their own reasons for going to Russia. Some went with their husband who settled there, others went to paint the aristocracy, to help the lepers or report on the Russian Revolution of 1917. Their experiences and observations of Russian political, social, and cultural life led them to write letters and books and keep journals and diaries about what they saw and how they responded to it---both positively and negatively.