Tales from "Blackwood". Volumes V and VI (in one volume)

(Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, n.d. [ca 1850]). 12mo; half calf with marbled boards; spine ornately gilt, with lettering-pieces to second and third compartments; marbled edges and endpapers; 'Tales' individually paginated. Cover rubbed and worn; lower joint starting at head; hinges tender; 'WITHDRAWN' stamp to flyleaf; foxed throughout. Good working copy. Contents of Volume V as follows: Adventures in Texas, abridged from the German of Sealsfield, by Frederick Hardman (1843); How we got Possession of the Tuileries, by Professor Aytoun (1848); Captain Paton's Lament, by J. G. Lockhart (1819); The Village Doctor, by Countess D'Arbouville (1849); A Singular Letter from Southern Africa, by 'the Ettrick Shepherd' (1829). Contents of Volume VI as follows: My Friend the Dutchman, by Frederick Hardman (1847); My College Friends - No. II: Horace Leicester (1845); The Emerald Studs, by Professor Aytoun (1847); My College Friends - No. III: W. Wellington Hurst (1846); Christine: a Dutch Story, by Frederick Hardman (1847); The Man in the Bell (1821). Of particular interest in this collection is 'A Singular Letter from Southern Africa', by James Hogg, 'the Ettrick Shepherd', renowned as the author of 'The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner'. Considering that Hogg never left Scotland, it is unclear where he obtained the material for the 'singular letter' from 'William Mitchell', but it is tempting to speculate that 1820 Settler Thomas Pringle, with whom Hogg was involved in the early days of the Blackwood's Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, may have been the source. .