Christian Isobel Johnstone, a versatile writer of both fiction and non-fiction and the first woman to edit a major British periodical, was born in Edinburgh in 1781; she was probably the Christian Todd whose birth on 12 June of that year was recorded in the St. Cuthbert parish records. At sixteen she married Thomas McCliesh, an Edinburgh printer, but the marriage was not a success: it had broken down irreparably by 1805, the last year of their married life that husband and wife ever saw each other, according to testimony at the suit for divorce that Johnstone launched (and won) in 1814. The grounds for the divorce were McCliesh's adultery, but given the timing of the case – the final decree was issued just seven months before Johnstone's June 1815 marriage to John Johnstone, a…
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Citation: Perkins, Pam. "Christian Johnstone". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5652, accessed 25 November 2024.]
