Thomas C. Richardson – författare

Although portrayed as the 'boozing buffoon' of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Hogg (both as the celebrated Ettrick Shepherd and anonymously) was a key contributor of songs, narrative poems, tales, and reviews to the liveliest of all early nineteenth-century periodicals. The present volume includes several items hitherto published only in Blackwood's, and ranges from the infamous 'Chaldee Manuscript' to newly-identified items such as a Scottish commemoration of the coronation of George IV. The volume also includes works Hogg intended for Blackwood's but which are now published for the first time.Hogg's work for his favourite periodical is provided in this volume in full cultural context, including detailed annotation and a convenient and complete editorial apparatus. Also included is music for several of the Shepherd's songs.

Hogg played a significant role in the success and notoriety of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, the 'Maga', as the magazine came to be known among the contributors, founded in 1817 by the Edinburgh publisher and bookseller, William Blackwood. Hogg's relationships with Blackwood, the magazine, and the major contributors were central to both his literary and personal life. From 1817 until his death in 1835 he published nearly 115 works in Blackwood's Magazine. His contributions showcase the diversity of his talent and his achievement as a writer; his published works include a great variety of songs and lyric poetry, narrative and dramatic poetry, sketches of rural and farming life, review essays, ballads, short stories, satirical pieces, and even a 'screed' on politics.This edition for the first time collects Hogg's 'Maga' publications, as well as provides a comprehensive introduction to Hogg's connection with Blackwood's and full explanatory and textual notes to the works.

A scholarly edition of Lockhart's most intricate and sophisticated contribution to the Scottish historical novelCritically-edited text with full scholarly apparatusComprehensive Introduction that addresses the composition of the novel, the novel's literary and historical contexts, and the novel's critical receptionExtensive Explanatory Notes that identify quotations within the novel, the novel's literary, historical, political, cultural, and geographical references, and other key expressionsProvides a comprehensive glossary of Scots words, as well as other single words that might not be familiar to the readerTextual notes addressing Lockhart's revisions based on the extant manuscript proof, as well as other publications within Lockhart's lifetimeThe History of Matthew Wald (1824) is John Gibson Lockhart's fourth and final novel and perhaps his most focused, stylistically successful fiction. The title character tells his own story, which is set in the context of, and carefully interwoven with, the larger historical, social, and political events and circumstances of Scotland in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Matthew Wald exemplifies Lockhart's idea that the novel should portray the 'human mind under the influence of not one, but many of its passions ambition love revenge remorse' and should reflect the historical and social truth of the age. This scholarly edition includes an Introduction that discusses the literary and historical contexts of the narrative and the novel's early reception and textual history. Detailed Explanatory Notes complement the Introduction to provide the modern reader with the resources to re-evaluate Lockhart's place in the history of the Scottish novel and Romantic fiction.

Valerius, A Roman Story, Lockhart’s first novel and what has been called ‘the first classical novel in English’, was first published in 1821 and extensively revised for Blackwood’s Standard Novels (1842) two decades later. This revised edition – Lockhart’s final edition – is the text presented in this new scholarly edition. The title character, a young Roman Briton, narrates and reflects upon his journey to Rome in the time of Trajan. The novel is part history, part travel narrative, part love story and part thriller, as Valerius’s personal journey is carefully interwoven with the history, culture, and politics of the Roman Empire in a time of Christian persecution. Lockhart offers Romantic fiction a new character and invites readers to consider conditions of nineteenth-century Britain through Roman life. This edition, with its extensive explanatory notes, provides the modern reader with the scholarly resources to re-evaluate Valerius and Lockhart’s place in the history of the Scottish novel and Romantic fiction.