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The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published by the Scottish author James Hogg in 1824. A classic gothic tale of good vs. evil set in a pseudo-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession, this novel is on the rise in academic circles and has received wide acclaim for its probing quest into the nature of religious fanaticism and Calvinist predestination.
On the surface the novel is a simple tale of a man meeting the devil and the various misadventures that subsequently follow, but on closer inspection the reader begins to doubt and question the most basic events in this tremendously complex novel. The "Devil", known only to the reader and Robert Wringham himself as Gil Martin appears to Robert after being told that he is one of the Just; a group of people who will go to heaven when they die no matter what. Extremely vulnerable at this point, Gil Martin could be the Devil. However, in Roberts fragile state, he has no companionship whatsoever, and so Gil Martin could in fact be a figment of Roberts imagination. The novel is told by three main narrators, all of whom contradict each other and offer their own explanations for everything that has happened.
The novel has been cited as an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which examines the duality of good and evil.
External links
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, at Project Gutenberg.
"The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner"