During the 1820s songs by Hogg had appeared in a number of periodicals, most notably in the Noctes Ambrosianae series in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
[1] In the event the choice was not limited to the previous decade: Hogg assembled songs from throughout his career, so that the volume offers a comprehensive survey of his work in the field.
He was closely involved with the production of the volume between October and December, adjusting the contents and correcting the proofs, although his nephew Robert played a minor part in the process.
Now first collected, published by William Blackwood in Edinburgh and T[homas] Cadell in London, appeared at the beginning of January 1831.
The final sentence of the review in The Literary Gazette may be regarded as representative of the general verdict: 'This volume will greatly raise the poet in the estimation of England, which is too apt to mistake him for a Noctesian roisterer, and, though an imaginative, a sometimes coarse prose writer.