Oxford
In 1810 Hogg went up to University College, Oxford, his father's alma mater. There he met and became friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley in October 1810. Hogg and Shelley often discussed literature and metaphysics, had a shared disdain for religion and Oxford society, and were united in their belief in free love and free thinking. Although Shelley's father initially feared that his son was being corrupted by Hogg's ideas, he was reassured when he learned that Hogg was from a respectable family.
Hogg and Shelley collaborated on a pamphlet of "mock revolutionary" poetry in late 1810, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, that they attributed to Nicholson herself. She was a mentally unstable washerwoman who in 1786 had attempted to stab King George III with a dessert knife. They also composed a novel together, Lenora, but could not find a printer who was willing to publish such a subversive work.
In early 1811 Shelley and Hogg published The Necessity of Atheism, which outraged the Oxford authorities. Although it was published anonymously, suspicion soon fell on the pair. They refused either to acknowledge or to deny writing the work, and were expelled from Oxford as a result.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Jefferson Hogg
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