James Hogg and the Literary Marketplace : Scottish Romanticism and the Working-Class Author

Responding to the resurgence of interest in the Scottish working-class writer James Hogg, Alker and Nelson offer the first edited collection devoted to a critical examination of his writings. The essays explore the varied and experimental works of Hogg to establish that they deserve a central place in Romantic studies and to demonstrate that they anticipate and address many recent concerns voiced in contemporary discussions of literature.

Responding to the resurgence of interest in the Scottish working-class writer James Hogg, Sharon Alker and Holly Faith Nelson offer the first edited collection devoted to an examination of the critical implications of his writings and their position in the Edinburgh and London literary marketplaces. Writing during a particularly complex time in Scottish literary history, Hogg, a working shepherd for much of his life, is seen to challenge many of the aesthetic conventions adopted by his contemporaries and to anticipate many of the concerns voiced in discussions of literature in recent years. While the essays privilege Hogg''s primary texts and read them closely in their immediate cultural context, the volume''s contributors also introduce relevant research on oral culture, nationalism, transnationalism, intertextuality, class, colonialism, empire, psychology, and aesthetics where they serve to illuminate Hogg''s literary ingenuity as a working-class writer in Romantic Scotland.