James Hogg

In James Hogg 1824 novel Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a young man named Robert Wringhim, or sometimes Wringham, encounters a shape-shifting devil. Robert is told that he is one of a small group of people predestined for salvation, and this doppelganger demon convinces him to commit murder and other crimes. Part Gothic novel, part case study in psychology, this is a probing quest into a world of angels and demons, predestiny and fanaticism.

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The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a novel by the Scottish author James Hogg, published anonymously in 1824. Considered by turns part-gothic novel, part-psychological mystery, part-metafiction, part-satire, part-case study of totalitarian thought, it can also be thought of as an early example of modern crime fiction, in which the story is told, for the most part, from the point of view of its criminal anti-hero. The action...

In Maddison's last visit to the ancient city, she encountered a man. More surprising was what he lacked on his face.... He wore no mask. A hundred years since the Great Disaster and he not only lived beyond infancy, but he breathed the air. No one breathed free air anymore at the risk of dying cancerous and crazed. Nothing of value is free-not the water, not the land, not the food... ...and certainly not the air.