Hogg's Reception and Reputation

Abstract

The trajectory of Hogg’s reputation has presented scholars with a range of difficulties and contradictions. This chapter traces key factors in that trajectory, including the early focus on Hogg’s labouring-class roots, his complex involvement with the persona of the ‘Ettrick Shepherd’, and his contentious relations with the publishing world during his lifetime. It considers the distinctive North American reception of Hogg’s work as well as its Victorian bowdlerisation, which contributed to the author's virtual disappearance from the modern literary canon. Finally, it traces the ongoing recovery of Hogg’s reputation following Gide’s reading of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner in the mid-twentieth century.