James Hogg was a Scottish poet and novelist from the early 19th century. Hogg was a poor shepherd as a boy. His employer lent him books and through hard work he became self-educated. Published in 1924 this work is considered a Gothic novel, a psychological study of an unreliable narrator and an examination of totalitarian thought. The novel is filled with angels, devils, and demonic possession. This is the story of a young man who encounters a shape shifting devil and the adventures that follow. Hogg explores the duality of good and evil which led critics to wonder if this work was the...

On the surface, this novel is a simple tale of a young man who encounters a shape-shifting devil, an early manifestation of a doppelganger, and the various misadventures that follow. This novel was perhaps the first post modern novel; it employs clustered narratives, self-reflexive point-of-view, unreliable narrators, and unsympathetic-protagonist. This is indeed a land mark novel.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This volume presents Higg's first collection of poems, Scottish Pastorals, together with his other early poems, and the "Letters on Poetry" that he contributed to The Scots Magazine in 1805 and 1806, some of which have never been reprinted before now.

Many of the finest stories of magic and fantasy, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Hogg's involvement with song collecting and writing spans the whole of his career, from the early 1800s until the early 1830s, and examples are found across all genres of his work - fiction, drama, poetry and in a number of important musical publications. His 1831 collection entitled Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd came about as an attempt to better his difficult financial situation, and is of particular interest and significance. It was published towards the end of his career, and it provides his own retrospective presentation of his lifetime achievement as a song-writer. This critical edition...

Set in early eighteenth-century Scotland, the novel recounts the corruption of a boy of strict Calvinist parentage by a mysterious stranger under whose influence he commits a series of murders. The stranger assures the boy that no sin can affect the salvation of an elect person. The reader, while recognizing the stranger as Satan, is prevented by the subtlety of the novel's structure from finally deciding whether, for all his vividness and wit, he is more than a figment of the boy's imagination.

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.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, (Full title, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor) is a novel by the Scottish author James Hogg, published anonymously in 1824. Considered by turns part-gothic novel, part-psychological mystery, part-metafiction, part-satire, part-case study of totalitarian thought, it can also be thought of as an early example of modern crime fiction in which the story is told, for the most part, from the point of view of its...