One of Sherlock Holmes's greatest rivals, a female detective who solves cases using her abilities in lip-reading and ju-jitsu, returns to print in this first-ever annotated, illustrated edition The incredible popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories led to an explosion in tales featuring fictional detectives, but few of them were as original or interesting as Richard Marsh's Judith Lee, whose stories appeared alongside Doyle's in Strand Magazine from 1911-1916. "My name is Judith Lee. I am a teacher of the deaf and dumb. I teach them by what is called the oral system​ - that is, the lip--reading system. I suppose I must have a special sort of knack in that direction, because I do not remember a time when, by merely watching people speaking at a distance, I did not know what they were saying. This knack of mine, in a way, is almost equivalent to another sense. It has led me into the most singular situations, and it has been the cause of many really extraordinary adventures." Thus opens the first of Marsh's charming stories featuring Judith Lee, who thwarts murderers, robbers, burglars, con-men, and spies using her remarkable ability to read lips in multiple languages, along with her quick wits, innate intelligence, and skills in disguise and martial arts. Best known today for his horror fiction, including The Beetle (1897), a Gothic thriller that initially outsold Bram Stoker's Dracula , Richard Marsh (1857-1915) is receiving increased attention in recent years for his other works, including the twenty-two Judith Lee stories, reprinted in full in this volume, along with the original illustrations from Strand Magazine and a new scholarly introduction and annotations by Minna Vuohelainen.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Complete and unabridged paperback edition. First published in 1893.

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"We cannot help wincing, cannot help feeling that the author has committed an error of taste, cannot help hoping with all the vigour at our command that his example will not be followed. [...] We are compelled by conviction to express in clear terms the disfavour with which we regard audacious enterprises such as the one undertaken by the author of this novel." -- The Literary World, May 25, 1900 "Richard Marsh, author of A Second Coming , is the author also of 'The Beetle' and 'The Crime and the Criminal.' This, therefore, is his third coming. If one wishes to read one of his books, let it be 'The Crime' or 'The Beetle.' It may be better than 'A Second Coming.' It cannot easily be worse." -- The Critic, July, 1900 A Second Coming (1900) was the first attempt at serious literature by popular novelist Richard Marsh, and when it was published by the influential London publisher Grant Richards, whose publishing house helped launched the careers of George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, and James Joyce, it appeared Marsh was on his way toward success as a respected literary writer. But the reviews were uniformly negative, decrying the book as blasphemous, and Marsh's bold and fascinating work was declared a failure and quickly consigned to oblivion. In A Second Coming , Marsh imagines what would happen if the long-awaited second coming of Christ took place in present-day London. How would he be received in a modern, industrialized world that had begun to question the relevance of his teachings and had tacitly given up hope of his return? Surprising and thought-provoking, Marsh's novel and the questions it raises are perhaps as relevant as ever. This edition features the unabridged text of the novel, a reproduction of its original cover, and a new introduction by Paul Fox.