'I like to write about myself: in fact, there are few things I like better!' So confesses Hogg with pawky self-mocking humour in Altrive Tales. The collection opens with Hogg's own story of how a ragged servant-lad remade himself as a respected professional writer, the associate of Byron, Scott, Southey, Wordsworth and Galt. Hogg's frank and humorous 'Memoir of the Author's Life' is widely recognised as a classic of Romantic autobiography and an important record of early nineteenth-century Scottish culture. The themes of the 'Memoir' continue in the tales that follow. 'The Adventures of Captain John Lochy' is a fast-paced historical fiction, the autobiography of a social outcast adrift in Scotland, Russia, the Netherlands, and Sweden. 'The Pongos' (an early version of the Tarzan story) takes a look at Scottish involvement in the British empire in a comic parody of Enlightenment notions about the nature of man and of society. 'Marion's Jock' is a virtuoso exercise in Scots and in Hogg's ability to communicate the peasant lifestyle of his native Scottish Borders. This new edition, thoughtfully introduced, extensively annotated and featuring a reading list and Hogg chronology, presents Altrive Tales as a major achievement by one of Scotland's finest storytellers.

About the Author
Gillian Hughes is the author of the biography James Hogg: A Life (EUP, 2007) and is editor of the journal Studies in Hogg and his World. She has edited or co-edited seven volumes in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg series.

Reviews
This is a fascinating volume, full of surprises, challenges and confirmations! Gillian Hughes's editorial activities are exemplary: the textual decisions and apparatus inspire confidence and assent, and the genesis of the Tales is pieced together from manuscript evidence in an introduction which is a serious piece of scholarly detective work in its own right! [S]he offers finely-observed, stimulating exegesis which will encourage further readings, and the explanatory notes offer some wonderfully suggestive analogies. Altogether, the volume is a revelation. This is a fascinating volume, full of surprises, challenges and confirmations! Gillian Hughes's editorial activities are exemplary: the textual decisions and apparatus inspire confidence and assent, and the genesis of the Tales is pieced together from manuscript evidence in an introduction which is a serious piece of scholarly detective work in its own right! [S]he offers finely-observed, stimulating exegesis which will encourage further readings, and the explanatory notes offer some wonderfully suggestive analogies. Altogether, the volume is a revelation.



Book Information
ISBN 9780748620876
Author James Hogg
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 470g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 22mm