Altrive Tales

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Altrive Tales (1832) by James Hogg is the only volume to have been published of a projected twelve-volume set with that title bringing together his collected prose fiction. It consists of an updated autobiographical memoir, a new novella, and two reprinted short stories.

Contents

Background

When Hogg's four-volume Poetical Works appeared in 1822 it was natural that he should contemplate a similar collection of his prose fiction. He made several attempts to interest publishers during the rest of the decade, most notably William Blackwood, but was constantly frustrated. [1] Matters reached a head in 1830 when Hogg's financial situation became precarious with the expiration of his tenancy of the Mount Benger farm. Blackwood continuing unresponsive, Hogg apparently concluded an agreement in late 1831 with the London publisher James Cochrane, for a sequence of twelve volumes appearing every other month in imitation of Walter Scott's immensely successful magnum opus Waverley Novels. Unfortunately Cochrane failed a few days after the publication of the first volume in April 1832 and Hogg was unable to find a replacement. [2]

Editions

Altrive Tales: Collected among the Peasantry of Scotland, and from Foreign Adventurers. By The Ettrick Shepherd was published in London by James Cochrane and Co. in mid-April 1832 in a print run of 3000 [3]

A critical edition, by Gillian Hughes, appeared in 2003 as Volume 13 in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Collected Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press.

Contents

'Dedication. To the Right Honourable Lady Anne Scott, of Buccleugh [Lady Anne Elizabeth Montague Scott (1796‒1844)]' (first published in The Brownie of Bodsbeck in 1818; here with small revisions).

'Memoir of the Author's Life' (first version published in The Mountain Bard in 1807; updated version in the 1821 third edition; here further revised).

'Reminiscences of Former Days' (first published here): a continuation of Hogg's autobiographical memoir to the present, adding brief reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Allan Cunningham, Galt, John Gibson Lockhart, and Robert Sym (1750‒1840).

'The Adventures of Captain John Lochy, Written by Himself' (first published here): a picaresque novella recounting the adventures at the beginning of the eighteenth century, mostly on the Continent, of a Scottish soldier of unknown but probably noble parentage.

'The Pongos: A Letter from Southern Africa' (first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1829 as 'A Singular Letter from Southern Africa. Communicated by Mr Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd'): the correspondent tells of the abduction and retrieval of his baby son and then his wife by a set of orangutans whose royal cub he had killed.

'Marion's Jock' (first published as the 'Laird of Peatstacknowe's Tale' in The Three Perils of Man in 1822): the narrator tells in Scots the story of a voracious cowherd called Jock.

Reception

The reviewers concentrated very largely on Hogg's 'Memoir' and 'Reminiscences'. [4] His power as a story-teller was acknowledged, though with some objections to incoherence and coarseness. The poetical dedication to Anne Scott attracted general praise for its elegance and delicate feeling.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hogg</span> Scottish poet and novelist (1770–1835)

James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorised biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series Noctes Ambrosianae, published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake (1813), his collection of songs Jacobite Relics (1819), and his two novels The Three Perils of Man (1822), and The Three Perils of Woman (1823).

<i>The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner</i> 1824 novel by James Hogg

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor is a novel by the Scottish author James Hogg, published anonymously in 1824.

<i>The Three Perils of Woman</i> 1823 novel by James Hogg

The Three Perils of Woman is a three volume work of one novel and two linked novellas by James Hogg. Following its original publication in 1823, it was omitted from Victorian editions of Hogg’s ‘’Collected Works’’ and re-published only in 2002.

The Queen's Wake is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in 1813. It consists of an Introduction, three Nights, and a Conclusion, totalling over five thousand lines, and there are also authorial notes. The poem presents the contributions, in various metres, of a series of Scottish bards to a competition organised by Mary, Queen of Scots on her arrival in Scotland from France in 1561.

The Mountain Bard (1807), containing 21 poems, was James Hogg's first substantial poetical publication.

The Forest Minstrel (1810) is an anthology of 83 songs, assembled by James Hogg, divided into four sections: 'Pathetic Songs', 'Love Songs', 'Humorous Songs', and 'National Songs'. Hogg himself is the author of 56 items. There are also 15 by Thomas Mounsey Cunningham, 5 by John Grieve, 3 by William Laidlaw, 3 by James Gray, and one perhaps by John Ballantyne.

Lock the Door, Lariston is a border ballad by the Scottish poet James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd", first published in 1811. It describes a sixteenth-century armed raid by English border reivers across the Anglo-Scottish border, met and defeated by Scottish borderers led by Jock Elliott of Lariston. Written in a traditional form, it was set to music by the 1850s, and is now a commonly performed Scottish folk song.

The Spy was a periodical directed at the Edinburgh market, edited by James Hogg, with himself as principal contributor, which appeared from 1 September 1810 to 24 August 1811. It combined features of two types of periodical established in the 18th century, the essay periodical and the miscellany. As an outsider, Hogg used his periodical to give a critical view of the dominant upper-class culture of Edinburgh, with Walter Scott and Francis Jeffrey as its leading lights, and to launch his career as a writer of fiction as well as poetry.

The Pilgrims of the Sun is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in December 1814, dated 1815. It consists of four cantos, totalling somewhat less than 2000 lines. In similar vein to 'Kilmeny' in The Queen's Wake (1813), it tells of a young woman's journey to an ideal world and her return to earth.

Mador of the Moor is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in 1816. Consisting of an Introduction, five cantos, and a Conclusion, it runs to more than two thousand lines, mostly in the Spenserian stanza. Set in late medieval Scotland, it tells of the seduction of a young maiden by a charismatic minstrel and her journey to Stirling in search of him, leading to the revelation that he is the king and finally to their marriage and the christening of their son.

Winter Evening Tales is a collection by James Hogg of four novellas, a number of short stories and sketches, and three poems, published in two volumes in 1820. Eleven of the items are reprinted, with varying degrees of revision, from Hogg's periodical The Spy (1810‒11).

Queen Hynde (1825) is an epic poem in six cantos by James Hogg. Set in western Scotland in the sixth century, it tells the story of the defeat of an invading Norwegian army by forces loyal to Queen Hynde, advised by Columba, and of the winning of her hand by the legitimate claimant of the throne Eiden. It is mostly in octosyllabic couplets.

Songs, By the Ettrick Shepherd is a collection of 113 songs by James Hogg published in 1831. All except one of the songs had previously appeared in print, mostly either in Hogg's earlier publications or in a range of periodicals.

A Queer Book (1832) is a collections of 26 poems, mostly short narratives, by James Hogg, all but two of which had been previously published, more than half of them in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Tales of the Wars of Montrose is a set of six fictional narratives by James Hogg published in 1835. Each of them centres on the fortunes of an individual during the civil conflict of the 1640s in Scotland.

The Shepherd's Calendar (1829) is a collection by James Hogg of 21 articles, most of which had appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine since 1819. They are set in, or deal with aspects of, the Scottish Borders, in particular Hogg's native Ettrick Forest.

A Series of Lay Sermons is a set of eleven moral and religious discourses by James Hogg published in 1834.

Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, a memoir by James Hogg, was published in New York in 1834.

Scottish Pastorals (1801), containing five poems and two songs, was the first book published by James Hogg.

The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818) is the first (short) novel by James Hogg. Set in the Scottish Borders in 1685 it presents a sympathetic picture of the persecuted Covenanters and a harsh view of the Royalists led by Clavers (Claverhouse). It draws extensively on local superstitions.

References

  1. ↑ For an account of negotiations during the 1820s see James Hogg, Altrive Tales, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh, 2003), xi‒xix.
  2. ↑ Ibid., xix‒xxix.
  3. ↑ Ibid., xxvi.
  4. ↑ For a full survey of the reviews see Ibid., liii‒lvi.
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