A Queer Book (1832) is a collections of 26 poems, mostly short narratives, by James Hogg, all but two of which had been previously published, more than half of them in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
Background
The earliest reference to A Queer Book is found in The Edinburgh Literary Journal in December 1830. It was envisaged as a companion volume to Songs, by The Ettrick Shepherd, which had appeared at the end of January 1831 and been well received. The new volume is a collection of 26 poems, longer than those in Songs and (apart from the first two) assembled from periodicals between 1825 and 1831: more than half the poems first appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Although Hogg left the final choice of poems to his nephew Robert and William Blackwood he gave fairly detailed guidance. Reluctantly, he also agreed that the two men should be permitted to modernise his 'beloved ancient stile'
Editions
A Queer Book. By The Ettrick Shepherd, published by William Blackwood in Edinburgh and T[homas] Cadell in London, appeared at the end of April or beginning of May 1832. A thousand copies were printed.
A critical edition, by P. D. Garside, appeared in 1995 as Volume 3 in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Complete Works of James Hogg, published by Edinburgh University Press. In view of the non-authorial changes made to Hogg's text, especially the modernising of his 'ancient stile', this edition recovers texts from manuscript (in eleven cases), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (in nine cases), and Annuals (in six cases), but it preserves the 1832 contents and their order.
Contents
The Wyffe of Ezdel-more
First publication here.
: The Laird of Gilbertoun shoots a pair of moorhens, unaware that they are two lovers transformed by a witch. Together laird and witch bury the pair (in human form), the witch singing a dirge. : The witch tells Gilbertoun her story: after her father had sold her into slavery she burned down the royal harem, emerging from the flames as a spirit. Returning home, she found her lover unfaithful and refused to forgive him: as a consequence she was condemned to a thousand-year penance. : The witch transforms three virgins disappointed in love into birds, one of them a lark. The lark takes Gilbertoun's fancy and he asks to be transformed himself, but the witch turns him into an unattractive crow. : The crow Gilbertoun asks for his mother's prayers, but she arranges for him to be shot by a thresher, and he is buried (in human form).
Robyn Reidde
First publication here.
: Robyn Reidde, a simpleton, displays his skill in archery at an administrative meeting on the Border. Lord Douglas willingly agrees that he should enter the service of the English Lord Scrope. : At Bury St Edmunds a monk gets the better of an aggressive trooper with his staff and is identified by some of the observers as Robyn. : Robyn defeats a French fencing master at Newcastle, and then (as a blacksmith) Lord Douglas before King James who makes him a royal page.
Elen of Reigh
First published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1829. When Elen's bosom companion Maria Gray dies, she sings in tribute to her before following her into redeemed bliss.
The Goode Manne of Allowa
Subtitled "Ane most strainge and treuthfulle Ballande Made be Mr Hougge". First published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1828; retitled 'The Good Man of Alloa' in A Queer Book.
An old man lamenting his lack of riches to dispense to the needy is taken by a lady on an amphibious palfrey to collect royal booty from a sunken ship. On his return, however, he keeps the treasure for himself, and the lady and her palfrey are observed taking him off to hell.
Jock Johnstone the Tinkler
First published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1829. Jock misdirects the Lord of Douglas who is pursuing the Lord of Ross and Douglas's beloved Harriet of Thirlestane. Jock defeats Douglas, and then two of his squires, in the encounters that result, before revealing himself to be the Lord of Annandale, Ross's brother.
A Lay of the Martyrs
First published in The Amulet for 1830. Marley Reed tells Marjory Laing of her callous treatment when she asks a captain to release her Covenanting bridegroom James on the road, and when she attempts to save him in Edinburgh by giving gold to a duke, only to be confronted with his head on a pole. On both occasions she proclaims her admiring love for James.