James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. He is best known for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Kirsteen McCue is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford. She is currently Head of Scottish Literature and Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow. She has published widely on Romantic song culture and is now working on an edition of Burns’s songs for George Thomson for the new Oxford edition of The Works of Robert Burns.