"A face looked into mine, and, in front of me, were those dreadful eyes. Then, whether I was dead or living, I said to myself that this could be nothing human,-nothing fashioned in God's image could wear such a shape as that. Fingers were pressed into my cheeks, they were thrust into my mouth, they touched my staring eyes, shut my eyelids, then opened them again, and-horror of horrors!-the blubber lips were pressed to mine-the soul of something evil entered into me in the guise of a kiss."

"A face looked into mine, and, in front of me, were those dreadful eyes. Then, whether I was dead or living, I said to myself that this could be nothing human, -nothing fashioned in God's image could wear such a shape as that. Fingers were pressed into my cheeks, they were thrust into my mouth, they touched my staring eyes, shut my eyelids, then opened them again, and-horror of horrors -the blubber lips were pressed to mine-the soul of something evil entered into me in the guise of a kiss."

The Beetle (1897) is a novel by Richard Marsh. Immensely popular upon publication, The Beetle was an instant bestseller and went on to inspire a 1919 silent film adaptation starring Maudie Dunham. Despite its success, the novel was largely forgotten until scholarly attention in the late-20th century highlighted its importance to the fields of gothic fiction, postcolonial criticism, and women and gender studies. "To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain,-that was bad. But, sick at heart, depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, to have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, [...] and to solicit it in vain!-that was worse. Much worse." Down on his luck, Robert Holt wanders the streets of London in search of food, a job, and shelter. Turned away from a Fulham workhouse, he finds himself standing before a seemingly abandoned house and, with nowhere to go, cautiously enters. There, he comes face to face with the mysterious Beetle, a figure from ancient Egypt who controls his subjects with mesmerism. Soon, Robert is used to commit a series of crimes against Paul Lessingham, a powerful member of the House of Commons. As the plot unfolds, a love triangle involving Lessingham, the beautiful Marjorie Lindon, and a vindictive chemist named Sydney Atherton falls victim to the scheming Beetle. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Richard Marsh's The Beetle is a classic work of British horror fiction reimagined for modern readers.

The Beetle (1897) is a novel by Richard Marsh. Immensely popular upon publication, The Beetle was an instant bestseller and went on to inspire a 1919 silent film adaptation starring Maudie Dunham. Despite its success, the novel was largely forgotten until scholarly attention in the late-20th century highlighted its importance to the fields of gothic fiction, postcolonial criticism, and women and gender studies. "To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain,-that was bad. But, sick at heart, depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, to have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, [...] and to solicit it in vain!-that was worse. Much worse." Down on his luck, Robert Holt wanders the streets of London in search of food, a job, and shelter. Turned away from a Fulham workhouse, he finds himself standing before a seemingly abandoned house and, with nowhere to go, cautiously enters. There, he comes face to face with the mysterious Beetle, a figure from ancient Egypt who controls his subjects with mesmerism. Soon, Robert is used to commit a series of crimes against Paul Lessingham, a powerful member of the House of Commons. As the plot unfolds, a love triangle involving Lessingham, the beautiful Marjorie Lindon, and a vindictive chemist named Sydney Atherton falls victim to the scheming Beetle. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Richard Marsh's The Beetle is a classic work of British horror fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Two hopeful, hapless romantics get drunk, get it on, and then get the hell away from each other. In her eyes, he's a mistake. A mistake who keeps turning up at parties. In his eyes, she's perfect. He's short-sighted. This achingly funny, romantic catastrophe fuses poetry and prose to ask if a one-night stand last a lifetime. A very human tale of good intentions and bad timing. Winner of 2012 Fringe First (for innovation and outstanding new writing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Dirty Great Love Story is a tale of the chance of love in a one-night stand. This second edition was published to coincide with the 2017 revival of the play and contains some changes to the original script.

There were several notable women detectives in 19th century popular literature, such as Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly and George R. Sims' Dorcas Dene, but Richard Marsh's Judith Lee is unique and amongst the best. Her stories are forgotten classics of mystery fiction. Like his illustrious model, Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Marsh relied on strongly-plotted yarns and a memorable hero: a lip-reading young woman with the busybody nature of a Miss Marple and the jujitsu knowledge of a Sherlock Holmes, facing a variety of dastardly devils, damsels in distress, cads and shady sportsmen. The Judith Lee stories were published to great acclaim in The Strand Magazine starting in 1911 and were first collected in book form in 1912. Their creator, Richard Marsh (1857-1915), was a British author best remembered for his 1897 supernatural thriller The Beetle. He was still writing Judith Lee stories when he passed away, and his widow issued a final collection in 1916. This omnibus volume includes both collections, as well as a never reprinted story from 1916.

'I saw him taking a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies all fell off him, and, as they were in the very act of falling, there issued ... a monstrous creature of the beetle type' Eminent politician Paul Lessingham is the toast of Westminster, but when 'the Beetle' arrives from Egypt to hunt him down, the dark and gruesome secret that haunts him is dragged into the light. Bent on revenge for a crime committed against the disciples of an Egyptian goddess, the Beetle terrorizes its victims and will stop at nothing until it has satisfaction. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

The Beetle (1897) tells the story of a fantastical creature, "born of neither god nor man," with supernatural and hypnotic powers, who stalks British politician Paul Lessingham through fin de siecle London in search of vengeance for the defilement of a sacred tomb in Egypt. In imitation of various popular fiction genres of the late nineteenth century, Marsh unfolds a tale of terror, late imperial fears, and the "return of the repressed," through which the crisis of late imperial Englishness is revealed. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a rich selection of historical documents that situate the novel within the contexts of fin de siecle London, England's interest and involvement in Egypt, the emergence of the New Woman, and contemporary theories of mesmerism and animal magnetism.