The Queen’s Wake was published by George Goldie in Edinburgh in 1813, and it transformed James Hogg from an obscure shepherd-poet into a literary celebrity. The poem uses a framing device — bards gathering at Holyrood Palace to compete before Mary Queen of Scots on her return to Scotland in 1561 — to present a series of narrative poems in different styles, each supposedly performed by a different bard.
The competition structure allowed Hogg to demonstrate his extraordinary range. “Kilmeny” — the tale of a pure maiden taken to fairyland who returns briefly to earth before vanishing forever — is one of the most beautiful supernatural poems in English, distinguished by a lyrical purity that Hogg’s contemporaries found astonishing from a self-taught shepherd. “The Witch of Fife” — a bawdy, violent supernatural ballad about a man who follows witches to their revels — shows the other side of Hogg’s talent: earthy, comic, energetic, rooted in the oral tradition of the Scottish Borders.
The poem’s success was immediate and sustained. It went through multiple editions in Hogg’s lifetime and established his reputation as the “Ettrick Shepherd” — a title that both honored and constrained him, since it emphasized his pastoral origins in ways that sometimes obscured his literary sophistication.
Collecting The Queen’s Wake
First edition (George Goldie, Edinburgh, 1813): Boards, paper label.
Market values:
- First edition: $200–$600
- Second edition (1813, revised): $100–$250
- Third edition (1814): $60–$150