The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Hogg, Thomas Jefferson
1792–1862, friend and biographer of Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was dismissed in 1811 from Oxford for defending Shelley’s atheism. Authorized by Mary Shelley to write a life of her husband, Hogg issued (1858) the first two volumes, which were biased, inaccurate, and overly devoted to incidents in Hogg’s own life; the family eventually withdrew the materials from his use. His account of Shelley at Oxford, written earlier, was published separately in 1904 as Shelley at Oxford. Throughout his life Hogg was a successful lawyer.
