Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 6

by Christian Isobel Johnstone, William Tait

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828 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2015

About the author

Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781 - 1857) was a prolific journalist and author in Scotland in the nineteenth century. She was a significant early feminist and an advocate of other liberal causes in her era. She wrote anonymously, and under the pseudonym Margaret Dods.

Johnstone wrote a number of popular fiction works in three and four volumes, for adults and juvenile readers. Her novel Clan-Albin: A National Tale (1815) was perhaps her best-known work; she also wrote The Saxon and the Gaël (1814), and "her best novel," Elizabeth de Bruce (1827), among other titles. Johnstone also wrote non-fiction books on a range of subjects, like Scenes of Industry Displayed in the Beehive and the Anthill (1827) and Lives and Voyages of Drake, Cavendish, and Dampier (1831). These books, like most of Johnstone's volumes, were printed anonymously. Her The Cook and Housewife's Manual (1826) was issued under the pseudonym Margaret Dods. This use of Margaret Dods mirrored the character name of Margaret Dods, the hostess of the Cleikum Inn in Walter Scott's novel Saint Ronan's Well (1823). The cookbook is written from the perspective of Scott's character, and includes an introduction written by Scott that mentions other characters from the novel. It was only late in her life, as with The Edinburgh Tales (1846), that she was identified by name on her title pages.