Contributions to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

Book excerpt: Hogg played a significant role in the success and notoriety of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which was 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 more than one hundred works in 'Maga', as the magazine came to be known among the contributors, and wrote perhaps another forty for the magazine that were not published there. 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. The volume also includes works Hogg intended for Blackwood's and which have now been edited from extant manuscripts.