The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

by James Hogg

Overview

Justified Sinner at its simplest contains the memoir of a young man, Robert Wringhim (or Wringham), who encounters a shape-shifting figure only ever identified as "Gil-Martin". This urbanely mephistophelian visitation — an early instance of the doppelganger in fiction — appears after Robert is declared by his "adopted" father to be one of the elect, and therefore a "soul" predestined to attain salvation. Although this invests Wringhim with a sense of infallible moral justification, he is at the same time tortured with self-doubt. Ostensibly co-erced by Gil-Martin (who the reader clearly sees exploiting these two mental states) Wringhim is led to commit a long series of offences, including multiple murders.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012870506
Publisher:	Granto Classic Books
Publication date:	06/21/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	202 KB

About the Author

James Hogg was born in a small farm near Ettrick, Scotland in 1770 and was baptized there on 9 December, his actual date of birth having never been recorded.[1] His father, Robert Hogg (1729–1820), was a tenant farmer while his mother, Margaret Hogg (née Laidlaw) (1730–1813), was noted for collecting native Scottish ballads.[1][2] James was the second eldest of four brothers, his siblings being William, David, and Robert (from eldest to youngest).[3] Robert and David later emigrated to the United States, while James and William remained in Scotland for their entire lives.[3]

James had little formal education, and became a shepherd, living in grinding poverty, hence his nickname, 'The Ettrick Shepherd'. His employer, James Laidlaw of Blackhouse in the Yarrow valley, seeing how hard he was working to improve himself, offered to help by making books available. Hogg used these to essentially teach himself to read and write (something he had achieved by the age of 14). In 1796 Robert Burns died, and Hogg, who had only just come to hear of him, was devastated by the loss. He struggled to produce poetry of his own, and Laidlaw introduced him to Sir Walter Scott, who asked him to help with a publication entitled The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.