Anecdotes of Scott (Collected Works of James Hogg) [Paperback]

James Hogg (Author), Jill Rubenstein (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Collected Works of James Hogg | Publication Date: May 2, 2006

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 the paperback edition of this volume, which also includes a useful Hogg chronology and reading list.

From reviews of the hardback edition

'What makes this in the end fascinating and compelling reading is that Hogg does not present us with a balanced and distanced account of someone else's life but rather opens up to us a particularly interesting relationship between two people, a relationship which attracts our attention because, like real-life relationships, it is not without its ups and downs, its tensions and disturbances... Jill Rubenstein's excellent introduction to these texts provides us, amongst other things, with a balanced and perceptive account of the two writers' complex relationship… "the tribute of one remarkable man to another, both flawed and both admirable, living in a remarkable time."' Scottish Studies Review

'The editorial task has been undertaken with a peculiar degree of commitment and with a determination that a long-postponed duty towards James Hogg will now be undertaken with a thoroughness which should stand the test of time.' Studies in Scottish Literature

Editorial Reviews

Review

On the evidence [of this volume] Hogg is a writer of enormous versatility, ambition and literary accomplishments whose work ought to feature on every Romantic syllabus. The editors of SSC are making this possible for the first time - Romanticists should seize the opportunity. Rubenstein's introduction ! is useful and perceptive., as when she suggests that Anecdotes was, for Hogg, 'a sort of declaration of independence'. In it, Hogg's rich voice ricochets from affection and awe to irritation and resentment. -- Rosemary Goring What makes this in the end fascinating and compelling reading is that Hogg does not present us with a balanced and distanced account of someone else's life but rather opens up to us a particularly interesting relationship between two people, a relationship which attracts our attention because, like real-life relationships, it is not without its ups and downs, its tensions and disturbances... Jill Rubenstein's excellent introduction to these texts provides us, amongst other things, with a balanced and perceptive account of the two writers' complex relationship! "the tribute of one remarkable man to another, both flawed and both admirable, living in a remarkable time." The editorial task has been undertaken with a peculiar degree of commitment and with a determination that a long-postponed duty towards James Hogg will now be undertaken with a thoroughness which should stand the test of time. On the evidence [of this volume] Hogg is a writer of enormous versatility, ambition and literary accomplishments whose work ought to feature on every Romantic syllabus. The editors of SSC are making this possible for the first time - Romanticists should seize the opportunity. Rubenstein's introduction ! is useful and perceptive., as when she suggests that Anecdotes was, for Hogg, 'a sort of declaration of independence'. In it, Hogg's rich voice ricochets from affection and awe to irritation and resentment. What makes this in the end fascinating and compelling reading is that Hogg does not present us with a balanced and distanced account of someone else's life but rather opens up to us a particularly interesting relationship between two people, a relationship which attracts our attention because, like real-life relationships, it is not without its ups and downs, its tensions and disturbances... Jill Rubenstein's excellent introduction to these texts provides us, amongst other things, with a balanced and perceptive account of the two writers' complex relationship! "the tribute of one remarkable man to another, both flawed and both admirable, living in a remarkable time." The editorial task has been undertaken with a peculiar degree of commitment and with a determination that a long-postponed duty towards James Hogg will now be undertaken with a thoroughness which should stand the test of time.

About the Author

The late Jill Rubenstein was Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0748620850
• ISBN-13: 978-0748620852
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,492,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Man of the People Looks Fondly at Sir Walter Scott, His Friend, February 2, 2007

By 

T. Patrick Killough "All about Patrick" (Black Mountain, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anecdotes of Scott (Collected Works of James Hogg) (Paperback)

When he was 30 years old, Sir Walter Scott went in search of a simple Lowland Scotch shepherd named James Hogg. Scott was pursuing old ballads of the Borderlands and had heard that Hogg knew many himself and that his friends and relatives knew many more. This rumor proved true and within minutes a friendship began spanning three more decades until Scott's death in 1832.

Scott saw more literary talent in "the Ettrick Shepherd" than the shepherd initially did in himself. Under Scott's guidance, Hogg created ballads of great power and popularity. Scott was almost rudely critical of Hogg's prose tales, but Hogg won popularity for those as well. And Sir Walter was not shy about proudly introducing his rural friend into aristocratic and literary circles of Scotland and England.

Glimpses of Scott at work and play, in good and bad health, drinking with friends and romping with children and grandchildren are scattered through Hogg's little Memoirs of his world-famous friend. They seem to have quarreled often about their relative literary merits. Once Hogg was so irritated by Scott's criticism of a recent work that he started to leave Scott's home in a huff. Scott begged him to stay, asking him not to take his frankness amiss. Hogg replied: " ... it is the greatest folly in the world for me to be sae. But one's beuks are like his bairns, he disna like to hear them spoken ill o', especially when he is conscious that they dinna deserve it." Once Scott implied that Hogg aimed too high literarily. Hogg interjected: "Dear Sir Walter, ye can never suppose that I belang to your school of chivalry! Ye are the king o' that school, but I'm the king of the mountain and fairy school, which is a far higher ane nor yours."

It is hard when reading Hogg on Scott not to think of Mark Twain's famously savage attacks on the Baronet in LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. Both Hogg and Twain (Samuel Clemens) were of simple backgrounds and little formal education. Both saw Walter Scott's faults, especially his deference to the aristocracy and a social world based on class distinctions. Mark Twain even blamed the U.S. Civil War on Scott's IVANHOE and on Scott's filling American Southerners with nonsensical ideas about religion, history, lost causes, dashing hotheaded aristocratic men and willowy young ladies. But Hogg, who knew the Laird of Abbotsford close up, also saw the kindest man he ever knew, the truest friend, the great writer never too busy to drop everything to receive a visitor high or low.

There is no special reason to read James Hogg's Memoirs if you are not very curious about Sir Walter Scott. But if you love Scott and demand to know all there is to know of him, then the Ettrick Shepherd is indispensable. -OOO-