One of the major grants supporting the Stirling/South Carolina Edition of Hogg’s work was a four-year Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) large research award (July 2002-December 2006) to Douglas S. Mack, which funded research including development of the three-volume S/SC edition of Hogg’s Collected Letters, edited by Gillian Hughes, and the completion of other volumes in the series.
In autumn 2006, the AHRC awarded a supplementary grant to Mack to support innovative ways of disseminating the outcomes of research undertaken for the original AHRB grant: creation of a website, and the recording and manufacture of an audio CD, I’ll sing ye a wee bit sang: Selected Songs of James Hogg. Highlighting Hogg’s songs and early poetry, engagement with oral tradition, and global reach, the aim was to supplement existing volumes and to extend the public audience for volumes under development (The Mountain Bard and Scottish Pastorals, Together with Other Early Poems and ‘Letters on Poetry’, edited by Gilbert; Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd, 1831 and Contributions to Musical Collections and Miscellaneous Songs, both edited by Kirsteen McCue (Glasgow). The latter two volumes of songs were subjects of a large AHRC grant awarded to Mack as Principal Investigator and McCue as Co-Investigator. Gilbert served as Production Co-ordinator of the original website and CD.
The team developed the original version of the website James Hogg: Research as a platform for the following resources, and these are in the process of being transferred to the new website:
(1) a listing of early American publications of Hogg texts, and the text of a previously unrecorded Hogg short story (‘Death at Sea’);
(2) a listing of early sheet publications of Hogg’s songs, with digitised reproductions of song-sheets and texts of the songs;
(3) articles discussing the research findings;
(4) downloadable recordings and images of Hogg’s songs performed by Kirsteen McCue (Glasgow), David Hamilton (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), and traditional Scottish singer Sheena Wellington, who memorably sang Burns’s ‘For a’ that and a’ that’ at the opening ceremony of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Some of the performances by Kirsteen McCue and David Hamilton were recorded live at the major international conference on ‘Scottish Romanticism in World Literatures’ held on 7–10 September 2006 at the University of California at Berkeley.