Description
A collection of thirteen tales and anecdotes, published for the first time as Hogg intended, and capturing the flavour of Border story-telling.
About the Author
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. He is best known for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. The late Douglas S. Mack was formerly Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Stirling.
Reviews
An important and addictively readable addition to the Scottish canon. -- Christopher Harvie
The reader is not being treated to a quaint display of an outmoded lifestyle, but privileged with glimpses of a community possessed of special knowledge and internal laws. Hogg's shepherds are far removed from those of Virgil or Spenser, while even Wordsworth's Michael seems remote from the narrator who can describe the destruction of '12 scores of excellent ewes' with such calmness and compassion: 'when the snow went away they were discovered all lying dead with their heads one way as if a flock of sheep had dropped dead going from the washing. -- Fiona Stafford
The stories are about storms, sheep, lairds, about farmers with designs on their servant girls, as in one of the most memorable, 'Tibby Hyslop's Dream', where a pious, winsome lass, prophesied over by a second-sighted, 'unco parabolical' great-aunt, copes with such designs - and the farmer in this case comes to one of Hogg's suicidal ends. -- Karl Miller
Book Information
ISBN 9780748604746
Author James Hogg
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 626g
About the Author
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. He is best known for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. The late Douglas S. Mack was formerly Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Stirling.
Reviews
An important and addictively readable addition to the Scottish canon. -- Christopher Harvie
The reader is not being treated to a quaint display of an outmoded lifestyle, but privileged with glimpses of a community possessed of special knowledge and internal laws. Hogg's shepherds are far removed from those of Virgil or Spenser, while even Wordsworth's Michael seems remote from the narrator who can describe the destruction of '12 scores of excellent ewes' with such calmness and compassion: 'when the snow went away they were discovered all lying dead with their heads one way as if a flock of sheep had dropped dead going from the washing. -- Fiona Stafford
The stories are about storms, sheep, lairds, about farmers with designs on their servant girls, as in one of the most memorable, 'Tibby Hyslop's Dream', where a pious, winsome lass, prophesied over by a second-sighted, 'unco parabolical' great-aunt, copes with such designs - and the farmer in this case comes to one of Hogg's suicidal ends. -- Karl Miller
Book Information
ISBN 9780748604746
Author James Hogg
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 626g
