Издания и произведения

На русском языке впервые публикуется роман «Тайная исповедь и мемуары оправданного грешника» Джеймса Хогга, шотландского писателя и поэта первой половины XIX века. Произведение Хогга снискало значительную популярность лишь в ХХ веке и теперь по праву считается одним из шедевров готической литературы. Мрачная история, разворачивающаяся на рубеже XVII–XVIII веков, повествует о молодом шотландце, который в состоянии религиозной одержимости совершает жестокие преступления. Читателю предстоит самостоятельно разобраться, кто же такой этот загадочный незнакомец, толкающий главного героя в бездну зла.

'He was constantly harassed with the idea, that the next time he lifted his eyes, he would to a certainty see that face, the most repulsive to all his feelings of aught the earth contained'. A nightmarish tale of religious fanaticism and darkness, this chilling classic of the macabre tells the tale of Robert Wringhim, drawn in his moral confusion into committing the most monstrous acts by an evil doppelganger. James Hogg's masterpiece is as troublingly duplicitous as Wringhim himself, and was ignored and bowdlerized before becoming a hugely influential work of Scottish literature. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best…

This extraordinarily complex novel from Scottish author James Hogg is notable for being a powerful criticism of the Calvinist doctrine of predetermination. Revolving around the story of Robert Colwan, a young man convinced that he is pre-determined to enjoy heavenly salvation. As Robert’s descent into evil, despair, and madness ultimately leads him to murder his own brother, Hogg’s novel questions the nature of religious fanaticism and its excesses.

'We have heard much of the rage of fanaticism in former days, but nothing to this' A wretched young man, 'an outcast in the world', tells the story of his upbringing by a heretical Calvinist minister who leads him to believe that he is one of the elect, predestined for salvation and thus above the moral law. Falling under the spell of a mysterious stranger who bears an uncanny likeness to himself, he embarks on a career as a serial murderer. Robert Wringhim's Memoirs are presented by an editor whose attempts to explain the story only succeed in intensifying its more baffling and bizarre aspects. Is Wringhim the victim of a psychotic…

Set in early 18th century Scotland, this novel recounts the corruption of a boy of strict Calvinist upbringing by a mysterious stranger under whose influence he commits a series of murders. Could this stranger be a figment of the imagination, or the devil himself?

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a startling tale of murder and madness set in a time of troubles like our own. Robert Wringhim is a religious fanatic: one of God’s chosen who believes himself free to disregard the strictures of morality—a view in which he is much encouraged by the elusive, peculiarly striking foreigner who becomes his dearest friend. Describing the seductive mutual dependence of these soulmates and the way—efficient at first, then increasingly intoxicated—they go about settling scores with their (and of course God’s) enemies, James Hogg presents a powerful picture of evil in the world and in the…

James Hogg's most ambitious prose work. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, is now widely acclaimed as his masterpiece. In the early years of the 18th century, Scotland is torn by religious and political strife. Hogg's sinner, justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained, is suspected of involvement in a series of bizarre and hideous crimes. A century later his memoirs reveal the extraordinary, macabre truth. The tale is chilling for its astute psychological accuracy as it illustrates, with power and economy, the dire effect of self-righteous bigotry on a fanatical character. In the…

In this terrifying account of a man haunted by the Devil in the form of his own evil double, Hogg’s 1824 novel, set in seventeenth-century Scotland, anticipates Dostoevsky’s great dramas of sin, self-accusation and damnation by half a century, revealing a comparable combination of black comedy, bitter realism and narrative sweep.

James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a Scottish classic, a quintessentially Gothic tale of psychological horror, and a relentless attack on Calvinist dogma. Robert Wringham's family is composed of a dissolute father and brother, a pious mother, and a rival father in the person of a fanatical Calvinist minister. He comes to believe that he is one of the elect, predestined to be saved, while others are damned. Sure of his freedom from the dictates of morality, he embarks on a series of crimes in the company of a new friend Gil-Martin, a man of many likenesses who can be mistaken for Robert, and who…

This carefully crafted ebook: «The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Gothic Classic)» is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The novel traces Robert Wringhim's gradual decline into despair and madness, as his doubts about the righteousness of his cause are counteracted by what appears to be the Devil himself, who is increasing domination over his life. Finally, Robert loses control over his own identity and start's committing murders. The action of the novel is located in a historically definable Scotland with accurately observed settings, and simultaneously implies a…