It is also 'a macabre and highly original tale, inviting psychological as well as literary interpretation' (Drabble, p.

No doubt the more liberal atmosphere of the 1890s helped to usher in the present edition, put out by theĪs a novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, defies simple classification, although its metafictional structure includes gothic elements and encompasses a religious satire. It was in this version that he was read by the Victorians, and unsurprisingly he came to be regarded as a minor figure, of no great importance or interest' (ODNB). 'In short the nineteenth-century collected editions offer a bland and lifeless version of Hogg's writings. Another collected edition of 1865 reprinted the censored text of 1837. This was heavily edited, with, according to John Carey, '113 pages chopped out'. In 1837 it was reissued as The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Fanatic in the posthumous collection entitled Tales and Sketches by the Ettrick Shepherd. It was first published anonymously in 1824 - that edition a notably difficult book to obtain.

This little-known version predates by some way the revival of interest in Hogg's book in the second half of the 20th century.Īs a novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, defies simple classification, although its metafictional structure includes gothic elements and encompasses a religious satire. First edition thus, an important, uncommon, and unbowdlerized edition of one of the most extraordinary novels on the 19th century, described by the literary scholar Walter Allen as 'the most convincing representation of the power of evil in our literature'.

The Suicide's Grave by James Hogg