The Collected Works Of James Hogg The Collected Letters Of James Hogg Volume 1 1800 1819

Volume 15 of the The Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg.

"Hogg left a written record of three of his many journeys to the Highlands, those of 1802, 1803 and 1804, and in Highland Journeys he offers a thoughtful and deeply-felt response to the Highland Clearances. He gives vivid pictures of his experiences, including a narrow escape from a Navy press-gang, and a Sacrament day with one minister preaching in English and another in Gaelic. Hogg also explains aspects of Gaelic culture such as the waulking songs, and he describes the trade in kelp, lucrative to the landowners but back-breaking and ill-paid for the workers. Highland Journeys makes a refreshing contribution to our understanding of early nineteenth-century travel writing"--Publisher description.

James Hogg was a prolific writer of letters, and this compilation features his correspondence with the likes of Scott, Byron and Southey. It also includes some of the tender, if idiosyncratic, love letters he wrote to the Dumfriesshire girl he married at the mature age of 49 years old.

The first ever edition of Hogg's letters to be published, featuring Hogg's correspondence with figures such as Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel.

Hogg was a superb letter-writer, and this is the initial volume of the first collected edition of his letters (to be completed in three volumes). Many of the letters have never been published before, or published only in part. They vividly reflect Hogg's varied social experience and shed new light on his own writings and those of his contemporaries. Among his famous correspondents were writers such as Scott, Byron, and Southey, antiquarians such as Robert Surtees, politicians such as Sir Robert Peel, and editors and publishers such as John Murray, William Blackwood, and Robert Chambers. But there are also letters to shepherds, farmers, aristocrats, musicians, young ladies, and bluestockings. Hogg first appears in this volume in 1800 as a young shepherd with literary ambitions, and becomes the famous author of The Queen's Wake (1813) and a key supporter of the early Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1817). Among the final letters it contains are some tender if idiosyncratic love-letters to the Dumfriesshire girl he married in 1820 at the mature age of forty-nine. Hogg's entertaining and informative letters are supplemented by detailed annotation and a full editorial apparatus, including biographical notes on his chief correspondents and a concise overview of this phase of his life.This edition of Hogg's Letters has its roots in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the four founder members of the James Hogg Society (Gillian Hughes, Douglas Mack, Robin MacLachlan, and Elaine Petrie) began work on tracing and transcribing Hogg's surviving letters. The major tasks of completing this work and preparing a full-scale edition of Hogg's Letters were subsequently passed to Gillian Hughes, who is now bringing this important research project to fruition.Key FeaturesThe first ever edition of Hogg's letters to be publishedIncludes many letters never previously publishedFeatures Hogg's correspondence with figures such as Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel.

"Hogg left a written record of three of his many journeys to the Highlands, those of 1802, 1803 and 1804, and in Highland Journeys he offers a thoughtful and deeply-felt response to the Highland Clearances. He gives vivid pictures of his experiences, including a narrow escape from a Navy press-gang, and a Sacrament day with one minister preaching in English and another in Gaelic. Hogg also explains aspects of Gaelic culture such as the waulking songs, and he describes the trade in kelp, lucrative to the landowners but back-breaking and ill-paid for the workers. Highland Journeys makes a refreshing contribution to our understanding of early nineteenth-century travel writing"--Publisher description.