Considered in turn a Gothic novel, a psychological case study of an unreliable narrator, and an examination of totalitarian thought, the ultimately unclassifiable novel is set in a pseudo-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession. It has been the subject of increasing critical attention in recent years, and has received wide acclaim for its probing quest into the nature of religious fanaticism and Calvinist predestination. It is written in English, with Scots appearing mainly in dialogue.

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### Review

We are left to our own imaginations and our own devices to piece together what exactly happened in and around the lands of Delcastle in the early 1700s. This, in short, is the essence of Hogg's genius.... [Hogg] will take his place beside James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Dostoevsky and D. H. Lawrence. If you have read him, read him again in this new, unedited, and thoroughly annotated version. If you've never read him, you should.

(Kay Gardner *AB Bookman's Weekly*)

*The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner* retains its place as an astonishing 'classic' of nineteenth-century fiction.

(Rhona Brown *Scotia* 1900-01-00)

### Review

Hogg [is] a writer who assimilated, subverted, and fictionalised the rigid class structures of his day, and whose innovative and varied contributions make him a key Romantic auto/biographer, journalist, and novelist. Peter Garside's edition of *Confessions of a Justified Sinner* throws a great deal of new light on a familiar text. His introduction... brings together the insights of previous editions and the finest scholarship on Hogg of the past twenty years... Garsides endnotes add immensely to our knowledge of Hogg's most famous book, and cap a scholarly edition that is impressive from start to finish.

(Robert Morrison, Acadia University)