The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner (New York Review Books Classics) - Softcover

James Hogg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590170253 ISBN 13: 9781590170250

Publisher: New York Review Books, 2002

Synopsis

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a startling tale of murder and madness set in a time of troubles like our own. Robert Wringhim is a religious fanatic: one of God's chosen who believes himself free to disregard the strictures of morality a view in which he is much encouraged by the elusive, peculiarly striking foreigner who becomes his dearest friend. Describing the seductive mutual dependence of these soulmates and the way efficient at first, then increasingly intoxicated they go about settling scores with their (and of course God's) enemies, James Hogg presents a powerful picture of evil in the world and in the heart and mind. This work of black humor, acute psychological insight, and, in the end, deeply compassionate humanity is one of the masterpieces of literature in English.

About this title

Review:

James Hogg's great novel is set in eighteenth-century Edinburgh, a city of night and shadow, of lurking eavesdroppers and invisible pursuers, of gloomy wynds and crepuscular crannies. The novel splits and doubles itself, its themes, and its characters: two texts, one following the other, are written from two different points of view; narrating the same terrible story, they contradict each other here and there, forming an asymmetrical diptych, all the more compelling for its discordancy and conflicts.
-- Marina Warner

A work so moving, so funny, so impassioned, so exact and so mysterious, that its emergence from a long history of neglect came as a surprise which has yet to lose its resonance.
-- Karl Miller, The Times Literary Supplement

Neglected at first, this brilliant short novel has climbed in the esteem of readers until it is now regarded as one of the glories of English literature--or, for those who like to subdivide these matters, of Scottish literature.
--John Wain

From the Publisher:

The Broadview Editions series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, lesser-known literature. Newly type-set and produced on high-quality paper in trade paperback format, the Broadview Editions series is a delight to handle as well as to read.

Each volume includes a full introduction, chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes along with a variety of documents from the period, giving readers a rich sense of the world from which the work emerged.

About this edition

• Publisher: New York Review Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1590170253
• ISBN 13: 9781590170250
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272