Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Professor Jaeyoung Park of the Department of English Education has completed and published the first full Korean translations in Korea of two important works of nineteenth-century English literature, Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Father and Son. This translation project has attracted attention from both academia and the publishing industry for earnestly introducing core texts of British literary history to Korean readers.

The translated Confessions of a Justified Sinner is the representative work of the Scottish writer James Hogg. Since its publication in 1824, it has undergone lengthy reevaluation and is today regarded as an early psychological novel that anticipates modern anxieties and the divided self. The novel relentlessly probes the duality of human inner life and the question of moral responsibility by depicting how a protagonist, consumed by religious fanaticism and predestinarian belief, seeks to "justify" his crimes. In particular, the plot device of a single character’s identity confusion and the emergence of an "other self" is known to have influenced Robert Louis Stevenson’s later The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In literary history, the work occupies a distinctive position linking Gothic fiction and psychological realism.

Father and Son is an autobiographical memoir published in 1907 by the British critic and writer Edmund Gosse. It delicately portrays the conflict between the religious strictness of the Victorian era and an individual’s intellectual and emotional development. The relationship between a devout evangelical father and a son who awakens to science and literature while forming independent thought symbolically represents the birth of the modern individual. The work’s significance for literary history lies in its concentrated depiction of the late-nineteenth-century British social conflicts among faith and science, tradition and modernity, beyond a simple family recollection.

Although the two works take different forms, they both center on the inner voice and the formation of the self. While Confessions of a Justified Sinner explores a distorted self within religious fanaticism, Father and Son depicts the process of growing into an autonomous subject freed from oppressive faith. This contrast vividly reveals how nineteenth-century English literature’s perspective on human existence evolved.

The translations are also significant for Korean readers. Until now, these works had been introduced only partially within some academic circles, making it difficult for general readers to encounter them in full. Professor Park’s translations have been praised for preserving the original style and intellectual depth while rendering the texts naturally into contemporary Korean, greatly enhancing the accessibility of these classics. The works’ reflections on religion, the individual, and society pose questions that remain relevant to Korean society today.

Translator Jaeyoung Park received his Ph.D. in English literature from Arizona State University in the United States and currently serves as a professor in the Department of English Education at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU). He has published numerous papers in the fields of literature and film and has participated in writing elementary and secondary English textbooks. He has also been recognized for both his scholarly achievements and educational contributions, receiving awards such as the Marvin Fisher Book Award, the Wilfred Perrell Fund Award, the JBNU Lifetime Mentoring Professor Award, and an online Best Teacher award.

He has previously translated works by Charlotte Dacre, Jessie Fawcett, Ellen Glasgow, and Wilkie Collins, among others, steadily introducing lesser-known English literary texts to Korean readers.

Professor Park stated, "Both works deal deeply with human interiority, belief, and social oppression, making them meaningful reads for contemporary readers. I hope Korean readers will rediscover the breadth and depth of English literature through these works."

This publication is evaluated as an important opportunity to expand the terrain of English literary classics within Korean reading culture beyond a mere translation.