Scottish Gothic

July 2016
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg - Wordsworth Classics, 1997
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This peculiar short novel was first published in 1824 but its use of unreliable narrators, ambiguous events and even a Stan Lee-like cameo by the author gives it a decidedly postmodern feel. It is also the earliest novel I have come across that engages deeply with the psychology of evil. Ultimately it is undermined by its heavy-handed religious message and a reliance on the Gothic, but it is an interesting experiment.
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