The Stirling/South Carolina research edition of the collected works of James Hogg ;

Witty, humorous and comical as the title implies, the eccentric nature of many of the poems collected here nevertheless belies the often serious historical and moral issues contained within. Including many of Hogg's best-known longer pieces, this is the first edition of A Queer Book to be published since 1832 - although the similarity between the two editions ends at the poems' running order. While the text for the earlier version was substantially reworked by the publisher to smooth out Hogg's use of Scots, this volume brings together manuscripts from all over the world to provide material as near to his final copy as possible. The result is a vibrant collection including many poems which have never been studied critically before. A thorough introduction to the best of Hogg's poetry.

The Three Perils of Woman is essentially a combination of two stories on similar themes, one set in the Highlands following the Battle of Culloden and the other in Hogg's Edinburgh. Daring in its narrative technique, its first readers were confused by the novel's juxtaposition of the comic and the horrific as Hogg explored the relationship between fictional life, as portrayed in, say, the works of Walter Scott, and the realities of nineteenth-century Scotland. Daring in its subject matter, they were also shocked by its treatment of such delicate matters as prostitution and venereal disease. Last printed in any form in the 1820s, this new edition reveals the exceptional quality of The Three Perils of Woman and puts it squarely back into the mainstream of Scottish literature.