‘The Minstrel Boy’ in Friendship’s Offering: A Literary Album, and Christmas and New Year’s Present

Poet Thomas Pringle edited the 1829-1833 issues of the popular annual Friendship’s Offering. Early in his editorship, he contacted many of the most popular writers of the day in search of contributions. William Wordsworth and Joanna Baillie politely declined, but the Scottish poet James Hogg sent him several works, including ‘The Minstrel Boy’, which appeared with a suitably sentimental engraving of a young shepherd.