The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Nov 27, 2025 5:33 AM

Author:James Hogg

'A Scottish classic, a world classic' Ian Rankin, Observer

Robert is a difficult and disturbed young man. He comes from a troubled family background and turns to his Calvinist faith for solace but finds it hard to get along with other people, particularly his brother and his dissolute father. After he falls in with the mysterious and charming Gil-Martin his actions become more and more extreme. He convinces himself that he is one of the lucky few who have been chosen for heaven and that therefore all his actions automatically right and good...even murder.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT

Reviews

A sinister, funny, moving tale of demonic possession, murder and religious fanaticism

—— Sunday Telegraph

Barmy and scary and predating Jekyll and Hyde. And written by a shepherd who barely read any books. A Scottish classic, a world classic, yet hardly anyone, writers excepted, has actually read it

—— Ian Rankin , Observer

A strange and disturbing novel written by a self-educated Highland shepherd. A gripping and pioneering work that deals with the nature of good, evil and religious fanaticism

—— Daily Express

That peerless drama of divided selves and doppelgangers

—— Maggie O’Farrell , Observer

One of the great English gothic novels. Some would say, simply, that it is one of the great novels

—— Daily Mail

An extraordinary, irreducible fantasy

—— Observer

Burgess's ambitious study of 20th-century history centers on the stormy relationship between an effete, popular novelist and a Faustian priest

—— Publishers Weekly

It is glitzy, glamorous, page-turning stuff with bite

—— Sarah Broadhurst

Chilling...will keep you guessing until the end

—— Psychologies

Chilling psychological thriller... Fact and fiction are cleverly blurred, and the intricately plotted spins and turns will keep you guessing till the end

—— Glamour

Intriguing... Real life tangles with his fantasy online world to create a heart-stopping page-turner

—— Good Housekeeping

Blueeyedboy is unquestionably a masterpiece of deception and fantasy

—— Oxford Times

A dark exploration into the mind of an internet-obsessed would-be killer

—— Red

Creepy psychodrama...BB's voice soon takes on the seductive cadences of her Gallic creations. Harris's triumph is to incorporate email-speak into this tale of rural nasties without frightening the horses

—— Independent

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