The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified SinnerA cornerstone of the canon, James Hogg's 1824 masterpiece The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a brilliant portrayal of the power of evil. Set in early eighteenth-century Scotland, the novel recounts the corruption of a boy of strict Calvinist upbringing by a mysterious stranger under whose influence he commits a series of murders. Superbly crafted and deftly executed, Hogg's book resists any easy explanation of events; is this stranger a figment of the imagination or the devil himself? |