author
James Hogg
1770–1835
A self-taught shepherd who became one of Scotland’s most distinctive literary voices, he brought Border songs, rural life, and eerie imagination into poetry and fiction. Best known as the “Ettrick Shepherd,” he wrote with equal ease in Scots and English.
7 Audiobooks
The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales (Vol. 1 of 2)
by James Hogg
The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales (Vol. 2 of 2)
by James Hogg
The Shepherd's Calendar. Volume I (of II)
by James Hogg
About the author
Born in Ettrick in the Scottish Borders and baptized in December 1770, James Hogg grew up in a farming and shepherding world that deeply shaped his writing. He had little formal schooling, but educated himself through reading and went on to build an unusual literary career from that rural background.
Hogg became known as the “Ettrick Shepherd,” a name that captured both his public image and his roots. He wrote poetry, songs, essays, and novels, often drawing on Scottish oral tradition, local history, and supernatural storytelling. He is especially remembered for work that helped preserve Border ballads and for the dark, inventive novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
During his lifetime he was connected with major literary figures of the Romantic period, including Walter Scott, yet his voice remained very much his own—earthy, lyrical, funny, and sometimes unsettling. He died on November 21, 1835, in the Borders, leaving behind a body of work that has continued to attract readers interested in Scottish literature, folklore, and early psychological fiction.