The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Penguin Classics)

by James Hogg (Author), Karl Miller (Editor)

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $10.13

  James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a Scottish classic, a quintessentially Gothic tale of psychological horror, and a relentless attack on Calvinist dogma. The Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Karl Miller. Robert Wringham's family is composed of a dissolute father and brother, a pious mother, and a rival father in the person of a fanatical Calvinist minister. He comes to believe that he is one of the elect, predestined to be saved, while others are damned. Sure of his freedom from the dictates of morality, he embarks on a series of crimes in the company of a new friend Gil-Martin, a man of many likenesses who can be mistaken for Robert, and who explains that they are as one in the holy work of purifying the world. But who is Gil-Martin? And what does he truly desire? The Gothic double or doppelganger is nowhere more powerfully imagined than in Confessions of a Justified Sinner, once called 'the greatest novel of Scotland'. This new edition has an introduction by Karl Miller, which discusses the presence of the novel in the life and times of James Hogg. It also contains two of Hogg's most interesting stories, 'Marion's Jock' and 'John Gray o' Middleholm'. James Hogg (1770-1835) born in Ettrick, in the Scottish Borders. A shepherd for many years, Hogg was writing poems by the 1790s, aiding Walter Scott with material for his collection of ballads, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In 1810 he moved to Edinburgh, where he published several volumes of verse, and worked on the Spy and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published anonymously in 1824, and is now generally seen as his masterpiece. If you enjoyed Confessions of a Justified Sinner, you might like Matthew Lewis's The Monk, also available in Penguin Classics. 'A Scottish classic, a world classic' Ian Rankin 'A sinister, funny, moving tale of demonic possession, murder and religious fanaticism' Sunday Telegraph

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $16.41

  This book contains an introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Robert is a difficult and disturbed young man. He comes from a troubled family background and turns to his Calvinist faith for solace but finds it hard to get along with other people, particularly his brother and his dissolute father. After he falls in with the mysterious and charming Gil-Martin his actions become more and more extreme. He convinces himself that he is one of the lucky few who have been chosen for heaven and that therefore all his actions are automatically right and good...even murder.

• New

  Paperback
  2002

  $33.18

  A TLS International Book of the Year (TLS, Dec 7, 2001) This now-famous book was given a hostile reception when it first appeared in 1824. It was not reprinted until the late 1830s, when a heavily bowdlerised version was included in a posthumous edition of Hogg's collected Tales and Sketches published by Blackie & Son of Glasgow. Thereafter Confessions of a Justified Sinner attracted little interest until the 1890s, when the unbowdlerised text was printed for the first time since the 1820s. However, the current high reputation of Hogg's novel did not fully begin to establish itself until 1947, when a warmly enthusiastic Introduction by Andre Gide appeared in a new edition of the unbowdlerised text. He went on to record how he had read 'this astounding book [!] with a stupefaction and admiration that increased at every page'. Many readers have subsequently shared Gide's enthusiasm, and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is now widely recognised as one of the outstanding British novels of the Romantic era. It has also been acclaimed as one of the defining texts of Scotland, with Iain Crichton Smith recently applauding 'a towering Scottish novel, one of the very greatest of all Scottish books'. Peter Garside's eagerly-awaited new Stirling / South Carolina edition (available in both hardback and paperback) excitingly opens out our understanding of Hogg's masterpiece. Its annotation adds very substantially to the contributions of previous editors, for example by showing various layers of hitherto undetected references. Through an impressive piece of scholarly detective-work, Garside has also uncovered the remarkable story of the first printing of the Justified Sinner and Hogg's battle with his London publishers, Longman, for his subversive and challenging novel to make its first appearance in a form he found satisfactory. This edition provides an illuminating and compelling new account of the genesis of Hogg's masterpiece, and of the cultural, theological, geographical, and historical contexts of this remarkable novel.