The Queen's Wake is one of the landmarks of British Romantic poetry. It focuses on the return of Mary, Queen of Scots to Scotland in 1561 to take personal rule of her kingdom after her years in France. In the poem poets and bards hold a poetic competition (a 'wake') in Holyrood Palace to welcome the Queen. A key concern of the poem is the state of Scotland in 1561 - a crucial period in Scottish history. The Queen's Wake looks back to the pre-1560 world of Catholic Scotland and explores the tensions between that old world and an emerging modernity. On publication The Queen's Wake was an unexpected popular success, placing Hogg for a while alongside Byron and Scott as one of the most admired British poets of that time. Over the next six years Hogg was encouraged to make substantial revisions, to make the poem even more attractive and saleable. It thus exists in significantly different authorial versions, each reflecting Hogg's circumstances at the time. To best serve the modern reader, this edition presents both the first and fifth edition of the poem.

The Queen's Wake is one of the landmarks of British Romantic poetry. It focuses on the return of Mary, Queen of Scots to Scotland in 1561 to take personal rule of her kingdom after her years in France. In the poem poets and bards hold a poetic competition (a 'wake') in Holyrood Palace to welcome the Queen home. In the descriptions of the songs and the people who sing them various Scottish poets of Hogg's own period can be recognised, giving the reader a sense of the condition of poetry in Hogg's Scotland. Another key concern of the poem is the state of Scotland in 1561 - a crucial period in Scottish history, coming a year after the legislation was passed that brought in the Scottish Reformation. The Queen's Wake looks back to the pre-1560 world of Catholic Scotland and explores the tensions between that old world and an emerging modernity. When The Queen's Wake was published in 1813 it proved an unexpected popular success, placing Hogg for a while alongside Byron and Scott as one of the most admired British poets of that time. Over the next six years Hogg was encouraged by major players in the Edinburgh book trade to make substantial revisions, to make the poem even more attractive and saleable. The fifth edition (1819) is an enhanced and carefully polished version from the now established and respected poet. It is markedly different from the edgy, powerful and unsettling first version of The Queen's Wake, which was the work of an impecunious and marginalised outsider. Thus the poem exists in significantly different authorial versions, each reflecting Hogg's circumstances at the time. In recent years a consensus has emerged that in cases of this kind the modern reader is best served by having access to editions of both versions. The Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Queen's Wake therefore presents both the first and fifth edition of the poem. Key Features: * The publication of one of the landmarks of British Romantic poetry * At time of publication the poem's success placed Hogg alongside Burns and Scott as one of the leading writers of the period * Presents both the first and fifth editions of the poem to allow the reader to compare the two * A careful editorial introduction places the poem in its historical context

In 1822 Rudolph Ackermann's Forget Me Not [...] for 1823 established a fashion for handsomely produced and copiously illustrated annual anthologies of short literary works. Books of this kind were designed as Christmas and New Year's presents, and in the 1820s and 1830s they became a significant publishing phenomenon. Like other well-known writers of the time (including Wordsworth, Scott, and Letitia Elizabeth Landon), Hogg was a contributor to the annuals, and Contributions to Annuals and Gift-Books brings together all the Hogg texts that were either written for, or first published in, annuals and gift-books. 'Invocation to the Queen of the Fairies' in the Literary Souvenir for 1825 was Hogg's first known contribution to an annual, and thereafter writing for the annuals became 'a kind of business' for him during the economic slump of the late 1820s. Contributions to Annuals and Gift-Books contains some of Hogg's finest short stories (for example 'The Cameronian Preacher's Tale' and 'Scottish Haymakers'), as well as some of his best-known poems (for example 'A Boy's Song' and 'The Sky Lark'). This volume highlights a coherent part of Hogg's total literary output, and in doing so provides new insights into an area of nineteenth-century publishing history that is attracting increasing interest and attention. Hogg was a professional writer with an acute awareness of the shifting trends of the literary marketplace during the 1820s and 1830s, when annuals were at their peak of popularity. However, his literary objectives did not always match the needs of the annuals, and as a result some of his contributions were returned as unsuitable for a family-oriented audience. Hogg's sometimes complex negotiations with the editors and publishers of the annuals are meticulously documented in Contributions to Annuals and Gift-Books. In this context, the volume (for example) reprints both Hogg's manuscript version of 'What is Sin?', and the version actually published in Ackermann's Juvenile Forget Me Not. The engravings for which Hogg wrote are included in the present volume.