The initial volume, of the first collected edition of Hogg's letters (to be completed in three volumes), showcases his talent for letter writing. Many of the letters have been published only in part or have never been published before. They vividly reflect Hogg's varied social experience and shed light on his own writings and those of his contemporaries. His famous correspondents were Scott, Byron, and Southey, antiquarians such as Robert Surtees, politicians such as Sir Robert Peel, and editors and publishers such as John Murray, William Blackwood, and Robert Chambers. Additionally there are letters to shepherds, farmers, aristocrats, musicians, young ladies, and bluestockings. The author first appears in this volume in 1800 as a young shepherd with literary ambitions. Later becoming the famous author of The Queen's Wake (1813) and a key supporter of the early Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1817). Among the final letters are tender but idiosyncratic love-letters to the Dumfriesshire girl he married in 1820 at the mature age of forty-nine. Hogg's entertaining and informative letters are supplemented by detailed annotation and a full editorial apparatus-including biographical notes on his chief correspondents and a concise overview of corresponding phase of his life.