The Collected Letters Of James Hogg Volume 3 1832 1835

Volume 21 of the The Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg.

The third and final volume of the first collected edition of Hogg's letters reveals his versatility in old age. It contains an index to all three volumes of Hogg's letters.

Retracing Hogg's remarkable journeys in the 21st centuryJames Hogg, also known as the Ettrick Shepherd, was a writer, poet, sportsman, musician and larger-than-life personality. In 1802, uneducated and still unknown, he set out on the first of a series of journeys through Scotland, from the Borders to the Highlands and Hebrides. The journeys were inspiring, life-changing and often frightening. They led him to a life of chaos, failures, fame, fun and literary masterpieces. Now, a descendant follows his footsteps and reflects on his experiences, and on the remarkable rediscovery of Hogg's works a century after his death. It is a story of tenacity, of daring to be different and, against all odds, success and a flourishing legacy. It is a lively look at an extraordinary life and some of his works, including Confessions of a Justified Sinner, considered by many to be one of the greatest novels ever written. Bruce Gilkison, a New Zealander and a great-great-grandson of Hogg's, walked through Scotland to discover what was special about him and his journeys. Like Hogg, he had no idea where these travels might lead. He found a world of stunning landscapes, fairies and mystery, genius and ambiguity, friendships and back-stabbings, and learnt about his flawed, lovable and eccentric ancestor.Key Features:Celebrates the extraordinary life of a flawed and lovable character, and provides a brief and accessible study of Hogg's worksExamines three Scottish journeys and provides an account of the same trips recreated by one of his great-great-grandsonsProvides a guide to parts of Hogg's travels in the Highlands, Western Isles and some other locations, showing how these influenced his career and his writingDemonstrates Hogg's ongoing relevance in the 21st century

This study argues for Hogg's centrality to British Romanticism, resituating his work in relation to many of his more famous Romantic contemporaries. Hogg creates a unique literary style which, the author argues, is best described as 'kaleidoscopic' in view of its similarities with David Brewster's kaleidoscope, invented in 1816.

This is one of Hogg's longest and also one of his most original and daring works. Gillian Hughes's uncovering of the original manuscript in the Fales Library of New York University in August 2001 allows the editors to produce here a text that reflects Hogg's original intentions. Alongside the two main plots (the supernatural located at Aikwood Castle and the chivalric located at Roxburgh Castle) a series of embedded narratives provides the reader with, amongst other things, pictures of the traditional and timeless world of rural life in which Hogg had grown up and of early Scottish history. The name Sir Walter Scott (used through most of the manuscript) is restored and passages excised from the manuscript or omitted when the printed edition was prepared are included in the editorial apparatus. In several cases Hogg's more daringly explicit language has been brought back where the printed edition has bowdlerised or subdued the expression. The restoration of the name in particular makes explicit how much this novel represents a challenge to Scott's dominance in the portrayal of chivalry and the Middle Ages in general. Any attempt to assess Hogg as a major novelist, and in particular as a major historical novelist, must consider this edition of The Three Perils of Man.

One of the earliest documented Scottish song collectors actually to go 'into the field' to gather his specimens, was the Highlander Joseph Macdonald. Macdonald emigrated in 1760 - contemporaneously with the start of James Macpherson's famous but much disputed Ossian project - and it fell to the Revd. Patrick Macdonald to finish and subsequently publish his younger brother's collection. Karen McAulay traces the complex history of Scottish song collecting, and the publication of major Highland and Lowland collections, over the ensuing 130 years. Looking at sources, authenticity, collecting methodology and format, McAulay places these collections in their cultural context and traces links with contemporary attitudes towards such wide-ranging topics as the embryonic tourism and travel industry; cultural nationalism; fakery and forgery; literary and musical creativity; and the move from antiquarianism and dilettantism towards an increasingly scholarly and didactic tone in the mid-to-late Victorian collections. Attention is given to some of the performance issues raised, either in correspondence or in the paratexts of published collections; and the narrative is interlaced with references to contemporary literary, social and even political history as it affected the collectors themselves. Most significantly, this study demonstrates a resurgence of cultural nationalism in the late nineteenth century.

A gripping account of one of the most contested questions in colonial history: what became of Greenland's vanished Viking settlers?