James Hogg’s “The Royal Jubilee: A Scottish Mask”

Here is the Scottish Poetry Library's advertisement for an upcoming event you may be interested in attending if you are in Edinburgh on December 2, 2022. 

James Hogg’s “The Royal Jubilee: A Scottish Mask”

A rehearsed reading, with songs

Friday 2 December, 7 p.m., Scottish Poetry Library, Canongate, Edinburgh. Tickets £5.

There are fairies, and brownies, and shades Amazonian,
Of harper, and sharper, and old Cameronian:—
Some small as pigmies,—some tall as a steeple,—
The spirits are all gone as mad as the people.
—James Hogg, “The Royal Jubilee”

On 14 August 1822, as George IV arrived on his ‘jaunt’ to Edinburgh, James Hogg published a new play: “The Royal Jubilee: A Scottish Mask”. The Jubilee is set – like key scenes in Hogg’s best-known work The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – on Arthur’s Seat. This live rehearsed reading with songs is – in the absence of any evidence otherwise –the first time the play has ever been performed since its publication 200 years ago.

Introduced by Valentina Bold (who edited the “Jubilee” in 1994) and Kirsteen McCue (editor of Hogg’s Songs), the reading will be by a cast including Jo Miller, Dolina MacLennan, Ajay Close, Sheena Wellington and SPL director Asif Khan.

https://tickets.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/.../764:122/

Treasure Trove of Letters Discovered: James Hogg Connection

A discovery has been made of hundreds of letters written by a lawyer, George Craig, from the Scottish borders to myriad correspondents. James Hogg was among his clientele. To read more on this discovery, click on the link to the BBC News article 'Long Lost Letters Shine New Light on 1800s Borders Life.'

Call for Papers: Studies in Hogg and his World (Fall 2023 Issue)

Call for Papers: Studies in Hogg and his World 

 

For its next issue, Studies in Hogg and his World seeks articles on works composed by a wide range of Scottish authors during the years that James Hogg was actively publishing: 1801-1835. Articles on Scottish working-class and / or women authors are especially welcome, as are those that connect the works of the Scottish author under study with those of Hogg (although this is not essential). As usual, the journal also seeks articles on the life and writings of Hogg for the upcoming issue, which is scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2023.  Studies in Hogg and his World is a peer-reviewed print journal. Therefore, all articles, pedagogical papers, and notes submitted will undergo the double-blind peer review process. Submissions should be made on or before May 30, 2023 to Dr. Holly Faith Nelson at Holly.Nelson@twu.ca.     

 

About Studies in Hogg and his World     

Studies in Hogg and his World was established in 1990. Its founding editor was Dr Gillian Hughes, the eminent James Hogg scholar, author of James Hogg: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2007), and editor, co-editor, or associate editor of a great many volumes of Hogg's works for the Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg. Dr Hughes edited twenty-one issues of Studies in Hogg in his World before handing over the editorship in 2010 to Dr Hans de Groot (1939-2019), Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto, the editor of the Stirling / South Carolina edition of James Hogg's Highland Journeys, and author of scholarly articles and book chapters on Hogg's works. With the passing of Dr de Groot in 2019, the editorship was taken up by Dr Holly Faith Nelson, Professor of English at Trinity Western University, co-editor, with Dr. Sharon Alker, of James Hogg and the Literary Marketplace: Scottish Romanticism and the Working-Class Author (Ashgate, 2009; Routledge, 2018), and co-author, with Dr Alker, of a series of articles and book chapters on the life and works of James Hogg published over the past two decades.

New Issue of Studies in Hogg and his World

 

Studies in Hogg and His World

Issues 29-30 (2020-2021)

Contents

Douglas Gifford 1940-2020 

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR INVITED ESSAY 

Extreme Pastoral: James Hogg and Other Animals

Ian Duncan 

ARTICLES 

Hogg and Hogg, Hogg on Hogg: Finding a Place in the Pantheon of Poets

Graham Tulloch 

An Ettrick Shepherd in London: Bringing the Margins to the Metropolis

Duncan Hotchkiss 

The Plagues o’ the Land: James Hogg, Witchcraft, and the Unsettling of Enlightenment Narratives of History in ‘The Witches of Traquair’ and ‘The Hunt of Eildon’

Mari Ulvestad Komnaes

NOTE 

Further Letters from Hogg to the Laidlaws of Blackhouse

Gillian Hughes 

REVIEWS 

Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field, by Walter Scott

Edited by Ainsley McIntosh

The Shorter Poems, by Walter Scott

Edited by P. D. Garside and Gillian Hughes

Reviewed by Graham Tulloch

Romantic Periodicals in the Twenty-First Century: Eleven Case Studies from ‘Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine’

Edited by Nicholas Mason and Tom Mole

Reviewed by Thomas C. Richardson 

Contributions to English, Irish, and American Periodicals

Edited by Adrian Hunter, with associate editor Barbara Leonardi

Reviewed by Dana Graham Lai 

Daniel Cook, Walter Scott and Short Fiction

Reviewed by Graham Tulloch 

Some Passages in the Life of Mr Adam Blair, Minister of the Gospel at Cross-Meikle, by John Gibson Lockhart

Edited by Thomas C. Richardson

Reviewed by Robin MacLachlan

 

Article on the Grave of James Hogg in The Sunday Times.

For those readers interested in the current state of the grave of James Hogg, you may want to read the new article in The Sunday Times: "James Hogg's Grave Left 'Desecrated' by Safety Rules" (if you have access to the paper). 

If you would like to contribute to the appeal to restore the headstone of James Hogg and other headstones in Ettrick Kirkyard, you can make a donation through the James Hogg Exhibition bank account with the Bank of Scotland. The name of the account is 'Friends of Ettrick School', the sort Code is 80-18-66 and the account number is 06001256. Or you can contact Vicky Davidson, the Coordinator of the Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company at vicky@ettrickandyarrow.org.uk.  

Any sum, however, small, would be incredibly helpful. 

James and Margaret Hogg’s Gravestones

As the Blog post on 5 July 2020 reported, James Hogg's gravestone in Ettrick Kirkyard is currently laid flat along with nearly fifty others, because of health and safety concerns. It is estimated that £20,000 is needed to restore the Kirkyard to the state it needs to be in. If you would like to contribute to the Kirkyard restoration, you’ll find details below.

 

In the meantime, there is good news about the headstone in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh that commemorates Hogg’s widow Margaret and two of the couple’s children. Like her husband’s, Margaret’s headstone had been laid flat. Thanks to a contribution from the James Hogg Society, it has now been restored to its original position, despite the pandemic and some terrible weather.

 

As the Before and After photos show, it now stands ready to withstand the ravages of time for the foreseeable future.

Before

After

 

If you would like to contribute to the appeal to restore the headstone of James Hogg and other headstones in Ettrick Kirkyard, you can make a donation through the James Hogg Exhibition bank account with the Bank of Scotland. The name of the account is ‘Friends of Ettrick School’, the sort Code is 80-18-66 and the account number is 06001256. Or you can contact Vicky Davidson, the Coordinator of the Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company at vicky@ettrickandyarrow.org.uk

Any sum, however small, would be incredibly helpful, as a belated celebration of Hogg’s 250^th anniversary year.

--Robin MacLachlan

 

FREE EVENT: The Shepherd and the Shirra: James Hogg and Walter Scott at 250

As one literary anniversary closes, another begins. In an online event sponsored by the National Library of Scotland, award-winning writer James Robertson and cultural critic Valentina Bold are discussing James Hogg, ‘The Ettrick Shepherd’ (1770 – 1835), and Walter Scott, ‘The Great Unknown’ and ‘The Shirra’ (1771 - 1832). Original, innovative and skilled, they were almost exact contemporaries: Borderers at heart, but from very different backgrounds. This event explores the lives and works of these Scottish writers of international significance, and celebrates their distinctive legacies in poetry and prose, from The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner to the Waverley novels.

This free event is taking place on Thursday 11 February 2021 from 1700 to 1800 (UK time). Further details about registering for it can be found at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-shepherd-and-the-shirra-james-hogg-and-walter-scott-at-250-tickets-136304359007

--Robin MacLachlan

For those who missed the event, it can now be viewed on YouTube (hosted by the National Library of Scotland).