The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor is a novel by the Scottish author James Hogg, published anonymously in 1824.

The action of the novel is located in a historically definable Scotland with accurately observed settings, and simultaneously implies a quasi-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession.

It was praised by André Gide in an introduction to the 1947 reissue and described by the critic Walter Allen as 'the most convincing representation of the power of evil in our literature'.

[7] Hogg was apparently prompted to suggest a relaunch in the summer of 1828 after an enthusiastic expression of appreciation of the work by Mrs Mary Anne Hughes, and left-over sheets of the first edition were re-issued in Edinburgh as The Suicide's Grave; or, Memoirs and Confessions of a Sinner.

[8] Hogg may have had an input into the text of the edition of the Confessions that appeared posthumously in 1837 in Volume 5 of Tales & Sketches by the Ettrick Shepherd, but the extensive bowdlerization and theological censorship in particular suggest publisher's timidity.

Rabina despises her new husband because he falls short of her extreme religious beliefs, due to his love of dancing and penchant for drinking alcohol.

The two brothers meet, as young men, in Edinburgh where Robert starts following George through the town, mocking and provoking him and disrupting his life.

Gil-Martin, who is able to transform his appearance at will, soon directs all of Robert's pre-existing tendencies and beliefs to evil purposes, convincing him that it is his mission to "cut sinners off with the sword", and that murder can be the correct course of action.

From Gil-Martin's boasting of the number of his adherents and size of his dominions, Robert falls into the delusion that he is Peter the Great of Russia, who visited England about that time.

The confession traces Robert's gradual decline into despair and madness, as his doubts about the righteousness of his cause are counteracted by Gil-Martin's increasing domination over his life.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions was published as if it were the presentation of a found document from the previous century offered to the public with a long introduction by its unnamed editor.

Because Hogg's novel appears to test concepts of internal validity, historical truth or a single rational world-view, contemporary critics sometimes regard it as an early anticipation of ideas associated with postmodernism.

[12] The Editor's Narrative "introduces" this memoir with "factual" descriptions "from local tradition" of events associated with Wringhim up to the murder of his estranged brother, George Colwan.

[13] The ending finally places the novel in the present time by relating the mystery of a suicide's grave, the exhumation of its remains and (only on the very last pages) the "recovery" of the manuscript.

[15] The Literary Gazette may stand as an average response: 'Mystical and extravagant … it is, nevertheless, curious and interesting; a work of irregular genius, such as we might have expected from Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, whose it is.

They tended to be confused by the double narrative structure and the theology, but The Examiner comprehended the latter and was in general enthusiastic: 'a surprising lack of probability, or even possibility, is accompanied with a portion of mental force and powerful delineation, which denote the conception and the hand of a master'.