A classic tale of supernatural horror.Richard Marsh's novel "The Beetle" is the story of a British statesman, Paul Lessingham, who is haunted by his youthful indiscretions in Egypt. A shape-shifting figure follows him from Egypt, intent upon getting revenge on Lessingham.The characters are well drawn: Paul Lessingham, a budding cabinet minister with an ominous gap in his past; lovely Marjorie Linton, a witty New Woman caught between her Radical lover (Paul) and her Tory father; madcap young scientist Sydney Atherton who also adores Miss Linton and is meanwhile working on weapons of mass destruction for the glory of the British Empire; Robert Holt, down-and-out clerk who falls into the clutches of the Beetle.

Richard Marsh, also known as Richard Bernard Heldmann, was a prolific British author in the Edwardian period. Marsh's best known work is The Beetle , a supernatural thriller novel.

"Humorous and highly amusing." - The Scotsman "A really entertaining collection of stories. The lover of fiction could not desire a more entertaining volume." - Yorkshire Post One of Richard Marsh's rarest works, Between the Dark and the Daylight (1902) contains twelve of Marsh's cleverest stories, ranging in theme from slapstick humour to Gothic horror. In "My Aunt's Excursion," the opening story of the volume, an urbanite Londoner leads his provincial aunt and her party of mostly deranged followers on a hilarious and madcap romp across London. In "Exchange is Robbery," Marsh's recurring charcters and jewellers to the aristocracy, Messrs. Golden and Ruby, discover they have been the victims of a massive jewel fraud. "The Haunted Chair," one of Marsh's strangest and most unnerving stories of horror, features an old chair at a gentlemen's club, whose owner seems capable of returning from the grave. In "A Relic of the Borgias," an ancient cameo ring appears to possess the power to kill. Other stories, like "Em" and "Nelly," reveal Marsh's softer side as a romantic novelist. This new edition, the first in over a century, features the unabridged text of the original work, along with an introduction by Prof. Paul Fox and a reproduction of the impossibly rare jacket cover of the original six shilling edition.

"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.