1. As Margaret Russett notes, the first edition of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto discusses the text’s origin in a found manuscript, while the label of ‘Gothic’ does not appear until the second edition; as such, the idea of the ‘found manuscript’ in some senses predates the founding of genre. Margaret Russett, (2009) Fictions and Fakes: Forging Romantic Authenticity, 1760–1845 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 13.
2. Joseph Ritson (1869) ‘A Historical Essay on Scotish Song’, in Scotish Songs in Two Volumes, vol. 1 (Glasgow: Hugh Hopkins), pp. 11–114, p. 67.
3. James Hogg (2002) The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Written by Himself, With a Detail of Curious Traditionary Facts and Other Evidence by the Editor, ed. P.D. Garside (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), p. 165. In his ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’, Hogg laments that his associates ‘sneer at my presumption of being the author of that celebrated article. […] Luckily, however, I have preserved the original proof slips and three of Mr. Blackwood’s letters relating to the article’.
4. James Hogg (2005) Altrive Tales, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 44–45. Proof of authenticity lies not in the text itself, but in the form of supporting documents. Meanwhile, he claims not only that Confessions was so ‘replete with horrors’ he could not sign it, but that he does ‘not remember ever receiving anything for it’ (p. 55); in opposition to the Chaldee manuscript, he is able to distance himself from the text through a lack of supporting materials.
5. John Burnside (1997) The Dumb House (London: Jonathan Cape), p. 8.