`Simple congratulations are in order at the outset, to the editors and publisher [...] of the projected Collected Works of James Hogg. It has taken a long time for Hogg to be recognised as one of the most notable Scottish writers, and it can fairly be said that the process of getting him into full and clear focus is still far from complete. That process is immeasurably helped by the provision of proper and unbowdlerised texts (in many eases for the first time), and in this the ongoing Collected Works will be a milestone [...] we have an author of unique interest, force, and originality.' Edwin Morgan, Scottish Literary Journal

`Edinburgh University Press are also to be praised for the elegant presentation of the books. It is wonderful that at last we are going to have a collected edition of this important author without bowdlerisation or linguistic interference [...]. These books of Hogg's have been wonderfully presented and edited. Hogg's own idiosyncratic style has been left untouched.' Ian Gridiron Smith, Studies in Scottish Literature

`It may take some time, hut when the current Collected Works reaches its culmination, Hogg's great novel should seem a little less oddly unique, and some other astounding books [...] may receive their share of belated glory.' Liam McIlvanney, London Review of Books

`[T]he Stirling/Smith Carolina edition of Horn's works is proving one of the major scholarly publishing events of the decade.' Penny Fielding, Studies in Hogg's and his World

`A quiet revolution in Scottish literary studies has been going on over the past 10 years. The Stirling/South Carolina research edition of the collected works of James Hogg has been steadily forcing a reassessment of one of our best-known but least-read authors.' James Rohertson, The Herald

Hogg played a significant role in the success and notoriety of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which was founded in 1817 by the Edinburgh publisher and bookseller, William Blackwood. Hogg's relationships with Blackwood, the magazine, and the major contributors were central to both his literary and personal life. From 1817 until his death in 1835 he published more than one hundred works in `Maga', as the magazine came to be known among the contributors, and wrote perhaps another forty for the magazine that were not published there. His contributions showcase the diversity of his talent and his achievement as a writer; his published works include a great variety of songs and lyric poetry, narrative and dramatic poetry, sketches of rural and farming life, review essays, ballads, short stories, satirical pieces, and even a `screed' on politics.

This edition for the first time collects Hogg's `Maga' publications, as well as provides a comprehensive introduction to Hogg's connection with Blackwood's and full explanatory and textual notes to the works. The volume also includes works Hogg intended for Blackwood's and which have now been edited from extant manuscripts