There was only one edition of "The Confessions" in Hogg's lifetime. It was published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green in London on 12 July 1824 and in Edinburgh three days later. The print run was 1000, and the cost 10"s" 6"d" (52½p). Publication was anonymous. Sales were poor: of the 900 or so copies sent from the printers in Edinburgh to London little more than a third had been sold by June 1825. 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. Edited by J. Hogg".