The Tales Of James Hogg

Published anonymously in 1824, this gothic mystery novel was written by Scottish author James Hogg. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published as if it were the presentation of a century-old document. The unnamed editor offers the reader a long introduction before presenting the document written by the sinner himself.

James Hogg (1770-1835) is increasingly recognised as a major Scottish author and one of the most original figures in European Romanticism. 16 essays written by international experts on Hogg draw on recent breakthroughs in research to illuminate the contexts and debates that helped to shape his writings. The book provides an indispensable guide to Hogg's life and worlds, his publishing history, reception and reputation, his treatments of politics, religion, nationality, social class, sexuality and gender, and the diverse literary forms - ballads, songs, poems, drama, short stories, novels, periodicals - in which he wrote.

James Hogg's incomparable stories of the supernatural hark back to the oral traditions of his own upbringing and tales of wonder around the fireside. The Brownie of the Black Haggs tells of the eerie relationship between the violent-tempered Lady Wheelhope and her strange servant, the ill-favoured Merodach, who has 'the form of a boy, but the features of a hundred years old'. The Cameronian Preacher's Tale tells of murder, spiritual apparition and God's justice in a world of hidden bodies and uncertain witnesses. Mary Burnet is one of the 'traditionary tales' that Hogg loved to recount, while his poem Kilmeny offers another account of faerie visitation and a virgin's vision of the future. All of these pieces explore themes that echo in his masterpiece, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.