"Hogg left a written record of three of his many journeys to the Highlands, those of 1802, 1803 and 1804, and in Highland Journeys he offers a thoughtful and deeply-felt response to the Highland Clearances. He gives vivid pictures of his experiences, including a narrow escape from a Navy press-gang, and a Sacrament day with one minister preaching in English and another in Gaelic. Hogg also explains aspects of Gaelic culture such as the waulking songs, and he describes the trade in kelp, lucrative to the landowners but back-breaking and ill-paid for the workers. Highland Journeys makes a refreshing contribution to our understanding of early nineteenth-century travel writing"--Publisher description.

John Macrone, who wrote this life of Scott in 1832-3, was admirably suited to the task; for, while he had never met Scott, his friends and associates included Cunningham, Galt, and Hogg, who wrote his Anecdotes of Scott for publication in Macrone's book. A quarrel with Lockhart, however, put a stop to the project, and nothing more was heard of it until the recent discovery of an autograph manuscript, here edited and published for the first time. A well-written and carefully-researched narrative, it increases our knowledge of Scott's life and work as perceived by his contemporaries, as well as enabling us to read Hogg's Anecdotes in their original context. The editor's introduction draws extensively on uncollected and unpublished material to illuminate Macrone's career, in the course of which he became the friend and publisher of Dickens, Thackeray, and Moore.

Using a wealth of diverse source material this book comprises an innovative critical study which, for the first time, examines Scott through the filter of his female contemporaries. It not only provides thought-provoking ideas about their handling of, for example, the love-plot, but also produces a different, more sombre Scott.