Description
A creature that seems to have crawled out of our worst nightmares...
Meet Paul Lessingham: an up-and-coming statesman, known for his unflappable calm, winning the respect of his peers and the admiration of the people with his powerful convictions and finely crafted speeches in Parliament. A man at the height of his powers, politically and personally, recently engaged to a beautiful young woman who adores him. A man on top of the world—reduced to a cowering, sniveling heap of abject terror at the utterance of two words: "The BEETLE!"
Set in London at the end of the nineteenth century, this blood-chilling tale is told from the viewpoints of four characters who have the distinct misfortune of stumbling into a diabolical scheme of revenge, with a scorned would-be lover—a strange, seemingly magical creature—at its core. Snubbed marriage proposals, secret engagements, deadly chemical experiments, and mysterious visitors all weave their hypnotic spell upon the reader, culminating in a desperate hunt for an abducted young woman whose life, it seems, is the price to be paid for her lover's indiscretion some twenty years prior.
Though published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Richard Marsh's The Beetle was far more popular in its day. This curated edition, based on the original 1897 publication by Skeffington and Sons, London, will horrify and delight the modern reader with its timeless tale of jealousy and its many hideous faces—as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago.
When I saw that this was published in the same time frame as Dracula and was for a time even more popular than Bram Stoker's masterpiece I knew I had to read it. Now for me that comparison is a high standard to live up to, and The Beetle did not quite make it.
A homeless man climbs through a window of what he thinks is an empty dwelling, in a desperate attempt to find shelter from the cold rain. Instead he finds himself under the control of a strange being with supernatural powers. After this fascinating start it began to lose me towards the middle and just did not measure up to it's contemporary. Others may enjoy it more than I did.
I received a complimentary copy for review.
About the author
Richard Marsh (October 12, 1857–August 9, 1915) was the pseudonym of the British author born Richard Bernard Heldmann. He is best known for his supernatural thriller The Beetle: A Mystery, which was published in the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula and was initially even more popular. The Beetle remained in print until 1960, and was subsequently resurrected in 2004 and 2007. Heldman was educated at Eton and Oxford University. He began to publish short stories, mostly adventure tales, as "Bernard Heldmann," before adopting the name "Richard Marsh" in 1893. Several of the prolific Marsh's novels were published posthumously
