Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott

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

Contents

Background

The origins of Familiar Anecdotes can be traced back to an article by Hogg which appeared in The Edinburgh Literary Journal on 27 June 1829. [1] Towards the end of the article Hogg anticipated producing a more extended portrait if Scott pre-deceased himself. He was prompted to compose this longer essay, entitled 'Anecdotes of Sir W. Scott', when he received a visit from the London publisher John M'Crone shortly after Scott's death in the autumn of 1832, sending the manuscript south at the beginning of March 1833. In the event the essay in its original form did not see the light of day until 1983, when it appeared in an edition by Douglas S. Mack published at Edinburgh by the Scottish Academic Press. John Gibson Lockhart raised objections, asserting that he ought to have been given an opportunity to ask Hogg to omit 'things that would give pain to his [Scott's] children' [2] and Hogg, offended in his turn, asked M'Crone to return the manuscript. However, in June 1833 Hogg agreed to entrust the work to Harper and Brothers in New York: for this purpose he prepared a fresh, substantially revised manuscript, with some new material, much reordering, and continuous small adjustments. [3] Hogg's new manuscript was censored and toned down by the American editor. [4]

Editions

Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott. By James Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd was published in April 1834 at New York by Harper & Brothers. [5] The first half of the volume was devoted to 'Sketch of the Shepherd's Life' by S. De Witt Bloodgood. A pirated version, The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott, was published by John Reid & Co. at Glasgow in June: this included footnotes by an unknown hand denigratory of Scott and Hogg. [6]

A critical edition by Jill Rubenstein appeared in 1999 as Volume 7 in The Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Collected Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press. Entitled Anecdotes of Scott this includes the original Anecdotes of Sir W. Scott and Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, taking Hogg's two manuscripts as copy texts.

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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.

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.

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.

<i>Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft</i>

Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq. (1830) was a study of witchcraft and the supernatural by Sir Walter Scott. A lifelong student of folklore, Scott was able to draw on a wide-ranging collection of primary and secondary sources. His book found many readers throughout the 19th century, and exercised a significant influence in promoting the Victorian vogue for Gothic and ghostly fiction. Though on first publication it met with mixed reviews, it is now recognised as a pioneering work of scientific anthropology, treating of its subject in an acute and analytical way which prefigures later scholarship on the subject, as well as presenting a highly readable collection of supernatural anecdotes.

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Margaret Laidlaw m. Hogg (1730-1813) was a tradition-bearer who collected native Scottish ballads from Ettrick in the Scottish Borders.

References

  1. ↑ The history of the Familiar Anecdotes is given in Douglas S. Mack, 'Note on the Genesis of the Texts' included in James Hogg, Anecdotes of Scott, ed. Jill Rubenstein (Edinburgh, 1999), xxx‒lvi.
  2. ↑ Rubenstein, Anecdotes of Scott, xli.
  3. ↑ For an analysis of the differences see J. H. Alexander, ' Anecdotes to Familiar Anecdotes ', Studies in Hogg and his World, 13 (2002), 5‒15, especially 5‒6.
  4. ↑ Rubenstein, Anecdotes of Scott, xxvii–xxviii.
  5. ↑ Rubenstein Anecdotes of Scott, l.
  6. ↑ Rubenstein Anecdotes of Scott, xxviii; the edition was also published in Edinburgh and London (l).
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