Christian Isobel Johnstone

Christian Isobel Johnstone, who published several popular books of fiction and non-fiction under the pseudonym Margaret Dods, took an active role in the publishing industry and was the first woman to be made editor of a major periodical.

Born Christian Todd in Fifeshire, Johnstone was married at the age of 16 to a printer. Divorced by her early thirties, she married a local schoolmaster, John Johnstone, in 1815.

Possibly inspired to enter the world of publishing by her first husband’s profession, Christian encouraged her husband to purchase the Inverness Courier. He became its editor while she provided content as well as publishing one of her popular non-fiction books, The Cook and Housewives Manual, which ended up running to ten editions, thereby guaranteeing her a steady income for the next 30 years.

On selling the Courier the Johnstones moved to Edinburgh and opened a printing office from which they published various journals, some of which Johnstone wrote the content for herself such as ‘Johnstone’s Edinburgh Magazine’. This was amalgamated into ‘Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine’ in 1834 at which point she became the editor in return for a salary and a half share in the magazine.

Johnstone was well known in Edinburgh literary circles and beyond, with leading writer of the time, Thomas Carlyle, referring to the achievements of ‘Mrs J’ in a letter of 1834. Perhaps having had no children, Johnstone was able to devote much of her abundant energy and drive to her career.

In addition to her work on journals and non-fiction, she published several popular works of fiction including her most well known novel, Clan-Albin, which is considered to be in a similar spirit of Scottish Romanticism as the work of her contemporary Sir Walter Scott. In this, she contributed to a broader attempt to document the customs and beliefs associated with Highland culture.

Johnstone edited Tait’s Magazine until it was sold in 1846 by which time she was 65 and ready to retire. On her death her husband, with whom she had had such a successful partnership, honoured his wife by placing a prominent obelisk on her grave in Edinburgh’s Grange Cemetery.