After Scott's death in 1832 James Hogg wrote an affectionate but frank account of their long friendship. Scott's son-in-law and official biographer, John Gibson Lockhart, declared himself to be filled with 'utter disgust and loathing' at the 'beastly and abominable things' he found it to contain. This edition includes both the original version, written as a contribution to a Scott biography planned by a young London friend of Hogg's, and a revised version created subsequently for an American market. Those with an interest in Romantic biography and autobiography will be particularly fascinated by these lively, readable, idiosyncratic and disconcerting texts. A wealth of information is provided in this volume, which also includes a useful Hogg chronology and reading list.

Hogg's extremely rare periodical of 1810-11 shows him reacting to the writers, personalities, and locales of Scotland's capital city after his move to Edinburgh from Ettrick and his career-change from shepherd and farmer to professional author. His characteristically astute and idiosyncratic vision reveals a rather different city from that of Walter Scott and Francis Jeffrey, and his band of contributors form another audience for his work than the middle-class Tories associated with the later Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. The Spy includes early versions of some of Hogg's best-known poetry and prose besides a wealth of fascinating lesser-known material. This is the first edition of The Spy since the original edition of 1810-11 was published, and offers a carefully corrected text, full annotation, notes on Hogg's contributors to his paper, and a history of its making. It represents an advance in our knowledge both of Hogg's early writing career and of the city he encountered early in the nineteenth century.

Winter Evening Tales (1820; second edition 1821) was James Hogg's most successful work of prose fiction in his lifetime. Its experimental medley of novellas, tales, poems and sketches posed a lively alternative to the dominant form of the historical novel established by Walter Scott. The collection includes terse masterpieces of mystery and the uncanny, virtuoso improvisations on folktale themes, and two brilliant autobiographical novellas, The Renowned Adventures of Basil Lee and Love Adventures of Mr George Cochrane. This edition takes account of newly-discovered information about An Old Soldier's Tale and The Long Pack. A critical introduction, explanatory notes, reading list and Hogg chronology are provided to assist the reader in appreciating Hogg's entertaining and challenging tale collection to the full. Contents The Renowned Adventures of Basil Lee • short story by James Hogg Dreadful Story of Macpherson • short fiction by James Hogg John Gray of Middleholm • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 1] • short fiction by James Hogg Adam Bell • short story by James Hogg Duncan Campbell • novelette by James Hogg An Old Soldier's Tale • short story by James Hogg Highland Adventures • short fiction by James Hogg Halbert of Lyne • short fiction by James Hogg The Long Pack • (1817) • short story by James Hogg A Peasant's Funeral • short story by James Hogg Story of Two Highlanders • short story by James Hogg Maria's Tale • short fiction by James Hogg Singular Dream • short fiction by James Hogg Love Adventures of Mr. George Cochrane • short fiction by James Hogg Cousin Mattie • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 4] • short story by James Hogg Welldean Hall • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 5] • novella by James Hogg The Wife of Lochmaben • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 3] • short story by James Hogg Tibby Johnston's Wraith • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 6] • short story by James Hogg The Bridal of Polmood • novella by James Hogg King Gregory • short fiction by James Hogg The Shepherd's Calendar • short fiction by James Hogg Connel of Dee • [Country Dreams and Apparitions • 2] • short fiction by James Hogg

Gathers together Hogg's writing for magazines beyond Scotland Beginning with the short story The Long Pack, first published in a London miscellany in 1809, and concluding with The Rose of Plora, a poem printed posthumously in a New York eclectic magazine in 1841, the collection spans the full period of Hogg's life as a professional writer. Several pieces are reprinted in this book for the first time. A detailed introduction explores Hogg's complex relationship to the periodicals market in Scotland and overseas, while an extensive Appendix records the many hundreds of reprints of his work in newspapers and magazines around the world. Each text is introduced and fully annotated, and its publication history accounted for. A glossary aids readers unfamiliar with the Scots language.