Book description
Edited and introduced by Douglas Gifford. The Three Perils of Man is
regarded as Hogg's most ambitious work of fiction. The book's
extraordinary combination of the fantastic, the funny, the serious and
the historically realistic must be unique in literature. The adventures
of its characters, told with the author's characteristically bold
simplicity, are many, mad, and breathtakingly fast. Ranging from
Galloway to Northumberland, the main focus of the book is to be found in
the Scottish Borders. Hogg knew and loved the Borders well, and the book
is full of their oral tradition and local lore. In his attempt to
synthesise this material with history, romance and the high literary
ideals of his time, Hogg's nearest modern parallels would be a
combination of Tolkien and Iain Banks. Hogg's fusion of traditional
folklore and innovative style was viewed as an anachronism by his
contemporaries, and it is only now that his work is recognised s one of
the most original and masterly in the Scottish canon.
