Midsummer Night Dreams and Related Poems comprises ten of Hogg's poems which, in very different ways, explore the visionary and supernatural, and one writer's portrayal of them, echoing the subject and title of Shakespeare's famous play. Chief among these poems is The Pilgrims of the Sun, a visionary journey which seeks to demonstrate Hogg's command not only of his native Scottish tradition of poetry but also of English and even European traditions, including those of Milton and Pope, Dante and Byron. Its counterpart is the hellish visionary journey of the weirdly brilliant 'Connel of Dee'....

This is one of Hogg's longest and also one of his most original and daring works. Gillian Hughes's uncovering of the original manuscript in the Fales Library of New York University in August 2001 allows the editors to produce here a text that reflects Hogg's original intentions. Alongside the two main plots (the supernatural located at Aikwood Castle and the chivalric located at Roxburgh Castle) a series of embedded narratives provides the reader with, amongst other things, pictures of the traditional and timeless world of rural life in which Hogg had grown up and of early Scottish history....