Scottish Gothic: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner / The City of Dreadful Night / A Beleaguered City

by James Hogg, James Thomson, Mrs. Oliphant

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Set in Scotland at the beginning of the 18th century, the anti-hero, Robert Wringhim, commits a series of murders under the influence of a mysterious stranger. The novel is divided into three a factual summary by the editor; Wringhim’s confession; and finally the subsequent discovery of Wringhim’s body and the shocking confessions buried with him. Hogg presents a powerful picture of evil in this controversial masterpiece of Scottish fiction.

The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson
Written as a long poem, Thomson’s dark and sombre work captures the pessimism and ultimately the horror of the city as a place of alienation, loneliness and despair. Its surrealism was well ahead of its time. Parallels can be drawn with T. S Eliot’s The Wasteland and Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

A Beleaguered City by Margaret Oliphant
Set in the Bourgogne region of France, this darkly powerful Gothic fantasy recounts the events that unfold when a city is besieged by the returning dead. The citizens are driven outside their walls when the dead invade their city, reminding the people of the importance of spirituality and faith over material things.

444 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 20, 2014

About the author

James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorized biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series 'Noctes Ambrosianae', published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake, his collection of songs Jacobite Reliques, and the novels The Three Perils of Man, The Three Perils of Woman, and The Brownie of Bodsbeck.