Highland Journeys

James Hogg

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.

Related Subjects

• Fiction

About the Author

Suzanne Gilbert is a Lecturer at the University of Stirling. She is a ballad scholar, and an Associate General Editor of the Stirling/South Carolina Edition of James Hogg, for which she has edited Queen Hynde (with Douglas S. Mack).Hans de Groot taught at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 2004. He has published a number of essays on Scottish literature in Studies in Hogg and his World and elsewhere.

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