Book description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT
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.
James Hogg was born on 9 December 1770 in Ettrick Forest in Selkirk,
Scotland. He worked as a shepherd and taught himself how to read and
write before being introduced to Sir Walter Scott who helped him begin
his literary career. His first collection of poems,
The Mountain Bard
, was published in 1807 and this was followed by
The Queen's Wake
in 1813. He went on to work for
Blackwood's Magazine
and published his most famous work,
The Private Memoirs and
Confessions of a Justified Sinner
, in 1824. James Hogg died on 21 November 1835.
