Holcroft, Thomas, 1745-1809

Radical journalist, critic, novelist, translator, and playwright; Holcroft's two most important novels include Anna St. Ives (1792), a novel that reworks plot and character elements of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1747-9) to shape a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), and The Adventures of Hugh Trevor (1794), which offers a more general satire on the established order. The majority of his plays were comedies, though later work includes the dark, unsuccessful drama, The Inquisitor (1798).

Hogg, James, 1770-1835

Indeed born in the Ettrick Forest and following the occupation of shepherd, James Hogg published several of his works under the sobriquet the "Ettrick Shepherd," a character he was to continue into his Edinburgh writing career, including his contributions to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. His first major publication, The Mountain Bard (1807) was a collection of ballads. His most significant work was a novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1834).

Hill, John, 1714?-1775

Also known as Sir John Hill, he was a notable botanist, writer, and journalist. Many of his publications are collected in The letters and papers of Sir John Hill, 1714-1775 (1982). Between the years of 1752 and 1753, Hill engaged in a "paper war" with rival authors including Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. In particular, The Story of Elizabeth Canning Considered (1753) was hostile to Canning and Fielding, arguing in favor of the perjury verdict that resulted in Canning's transportation to Connecticut. and

Hill, Aaron, 1685-1750

A versatile but only moderately successful playwright, theater manager, and essayist, Hill was one of Alexander Pope’s targets in The Dunciad. As a business man, Hill not only managed the Drury Lane and the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket for brief periods, but was involved in concerns as varied as lumber for Navy ships, potash production, beech nut oil, winemaking, and more. As an author, he began with A full and just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1709), the account of his impromptu solo journey as a teenager from Britain to his uncle's ambassadorial post in Turkey.