Altrive Tales
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Altrive Tales (1832) by James Hogg is the only volume to have been published of a projected twelve-volume set with that title bringing together his collected prose fiction. It consists of an updated autobiographical memoir, a new novella, and two reprinted short stories.
When Hogg's four-volume Poetical Works appeared in 1822 it was natural that he should contemplate a similar collection of his prose fiction. He made several attempts to interest publishers during the rest of the decade, most notably William Blackwood, but was constantly frustrated.[1] Matters reached a head in 1830 when Hogg's financial situation became precarious with the expiration of his tenancy of the Mount Benger farm. Blackwood continuing unresponsive, Hogg apparently concluded an agreement in late 1831 with the London publisher James Cochrane, for a sequence of twelve volumes appearing every other month in imitation of Walter Scott's immensely successful magnum opus Waverley Novels. Unfortunately Cochrane failed a few days after the publication of the first volume in April 1832 and Hogg was unable to find a replacement.[2]
Editions
Altrive Tales: Collected among the Peasantry of Scotland, and from Foreign Adventurers. By The Ettrick Shepherd was published in London by James Cochrane and Co. in mid-April 1832 in a print run of 3000[3]
A critical edition, by Gillian Hughes, appeared in 2003 as Volume 13 in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Collected Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press.