Description
Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs, &c. Mostly written in the Dialect of the South. Edinburgh: Printed by John Taylor, Grassmarket, 1801. First edition, 8vo, [1-5], 6-62, 19th century calf-backed cloth, margins seemingly trimmed with scissors or a knife affecting a letter on p.53, several letters on p. 59-62, lower corner of p.58 torn away with loss of 2 or 3 letters, some dust-soiling, chiefly to title-page and verso of final leaf, spine partly detached (and loosely inserted), 2 small numerals in ink at head of title page in inner margin
Footnote
Note: VERY RARE. The first edition of Hogg's Scottish Pastorals is very rare and must have been printed in fairly small numbers. COPAC records only 6 copies in UK libraries (including NLS, Edinburgh and Glasgow University).
Scottish Pastorals was published when Hogg was thirty years old and running the sheep-farm of Ettrickhouse in the Ettrick valley. The poems offer a striking picture of rural Scottish life in the early nineteenth century and contain a good deal of raw energy. The year after its publication Hogg met Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorized biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake (1813), his collection of songs Jacobite Reliques (1819), and his two novels The Three Perils of Man (1822), and The Three Perils of Woman (1823).
According to his "Memoir of the Author's Life" Hogg arranged for the Scottish Pastorals to be printed after delivering sheep to market in Edinburgh, writing out some of the poems from memory, and engaging 'a person to print at my expense'. As this was undertaken virtually on the spur of the moment Hogg selected, as he later stated, not neccesarily the best poems but those he could remember most. The printer was John Taylor, a stationer, whose premises were opposite the sheep pens in Edinburgh's Grassmarket. Taylor printed mostly cheap chapbooks, of typically poor quality, and is unlikely to have sold many copies from his modest premises while Hogg gave away copies to friends so the publication cannot have been a commerical success. Hogg too was mortified to find numerous textual misprints, so much so that in later life he took little pride in his first collection of poems in print.
Provenance: , Dr James Fairweather Milne (1896-1985), one-time General Practitioner at Boddam, bequeathed to 3rd cousin, the vendor.