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).