SOURCE: Smith, Nelson C. “Conventional Poetry and Fiction.” In James Hogg, pp. 50-76. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.

In the following essay, Smith discusses a number of Hogg's lesser works—including ballads, lyrics, and longer narrative poetry and fiction—focusing on the largely conventional techniques, forms, and themes of these writings.

Samuel Johnson observed that no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, and there can be little doubt that Hogg's literary aims were in great measure economic. He used his literary earnings to rent and stock farms; he preferred the life of the country, and was happiest there. He made little effort to correct or revise his work, except for collected editions, and maintained throughout his life that he never reread anything that he had written. Once he told the publisher James Ballantyne to send the proofs of Three Perils of Woman to Scott for correction, but...