The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner - James Hogg

A 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?

This is the complete edition of Hogg's Confessions, including the engraved frontispiece and the (fictional) dedication, omitted from most editions since its first publication in 1824. Today it still serves as a disturbing insight into the dark heart of the human soul and a scathing critique of the strictures of organised religion.