The Author

James Hogg, called the Ettrick Shepherd, novelist and poet, was born in Ettrick Forest, Selkirkshire in 1770. His father was a impoverished farmer and the boy had no formal education. At the age of 20 he became shepherd to a farmer for ten years. There he had access to books and began to write. In 1801 he published his collection of Scottish pastorals and poems. In 1802 he met Walter Scott, and their interest in traditional ballads led to a lifelong friendship. After various misfortunes as a farmer he moved to Edinburgh in 1810. There he started a literary magazine which folded after a year. His growing reputation as a poet led to friendships with De Qunicey, Wordsworth and Byron. In 1816 the Countess of Dalkeith bequeathed him a farm where he lived for the rest of his life until his death in 1835.

The Work

Scottish Pastorals (1801)
The Mountain Bard (1807)
The Shepherd's Guide (1807)
The Forest Minstrel (1810)
The Queen's Wake (1813)
Mador of the Moor (1814/16)
The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815)
The Poetic Mirror (1816)
Queen Hynde (1817/25)
The Chaldee Manuscript (1817)
The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818)
The Jacobite Relics of Scotland (1819-21)
The Winter Evening Tales (1820)
The Poetical Works of James Hogg (1822)
The Three Perils of Man (1822)
The Three Perils of Women (1823)
Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
The Shepherd's Calender (1829)
Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (1831)
Altrive Tales (1832)
The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott (1834)
Tales of the Wars of Montrose (1835)
Letters

Appendix

Wordsworth's Upon the Death of James Hogg
The James Hogg Society
Sources/Colophon