The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

2024 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of this book. It offers an illuminating and compelling account of the genesis of Hogg's masterpiece, and of the cultural, theological, geographical and historical contexts of this remarkable novel.

This now-famous book was given a hostile reception when it first appeared in 1824. It was not reprinted until the late 1830s in a bowdlerised form. Thereafter Confessions of a Justified Sinner attracted little interest until the 1890s, when the unbowdlerised text was printed for the first time since the 1820s. However, the high reputation of Hogg's novel did not fully begin to establish itself until 1947, when a warmly enthusiastic Introduction by André Gide appeared in a new edition of the unbowdlerised text. Many readers have subsequently shared Gide's enthusiasm, and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is now widely recognised as one of the outstanding British novels of the Romantic era. It has also been acclaimed as one of the defining texts of Scotland, with Iain Crichton Smith applauding 'a towering Scottish novel, one of the very greatest of all Scottish books'