It changes its shape at will. It compels others to do its bidding. It inspires terror in all who look on it ...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 Isis, the Beetle terrorizes its victims and will stop at nothing until it has satisfaction. Six people's worlds are turned upside down by murder, mesmerism and human sacrifice as they struggle to save their sanity and above all, their lives.

The Beetle

Religion & Spirituality

Richard Marsh

New Age & Spirituality

Penguin

'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.

Beetle

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Penguin Classics

'The noises were fuzzy in the darkness. Like hearing a domestic dispute through an apartment wall. As a cop, it was a scenario I'd experienced many times as I'd approached a stranger's front door. But this was different. This time I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't moving at all. Couldn't move at all.' In May 2009 Napa cop Richard Marsh suffered a severe stroke that submerged him in the terrifying world of a Locked-in sufferer. Brain activity remains but sufferers have no way of communicating with the outside world. In fact, 90 percent of sufferers die within four months of onset. Locked In follows Richard's extraordinary race against time. First, to prove his existence to the medical team and then to beat the odds of surviving Locked-in syndrome. Written with the intensity of a thriller, we witness astonishing moments in his journey, such as Richard finally hearing a neurosurgeon say, 'I think there's someone in here'. Now fully recovered, Richard's story is one of triumph that will captivate and inspire.

Locked In: One man's miraculous escape from the terrifying confines of Locked-in syndrome

Piatkus

Preoccupied with death, and repressed in many areas of their lives, Victorians seem to have found an emotional outlet in ghost stories, eerie tales, and a fascination with the macabre. Writers of the era fed this appetite with a continuing feast of stories steeped in terror and the supernatural. This unique collection gathers together 21 of these Victorian-era spine-tinglers, but unlike most anthologies, which feature the same tired tales, this volume contains 21 outstanding, but neglected stories from that time period. The product of painstaking research in libraries, antique bookshops, and other out-of-the-way archives, these rare gems include the title story, a black comedy by Ambrose Bierce; "The Ship that Saw a Ghost," a tale of seafaring mystery by Frank Norris; "The Tomb," Guy de Maupassant's grotesque account of one man's incurable longing for his deceased lover; Richard Marsh's unsettling tale of "The Haunted Chair," and 17 more. Compelling tales by such lesser-known writers as Dorothea Gerard, J. Keighley Snowden, Robert Barr, and Georgina C. Clark round out this collection of carefully chosen, hard-to-find narratives, sure to delight the most discerning reader of Victorian tales of terror and the supernatural.

A Bottomless Grave: and Other Victorian Tales of Terror (Dover Thrift Editions)

Frank, Norris

Ambrose, Bierce

guy-de-maupassant

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Dover Publications

These Things Happen

2000 Years of History, Myth, Legend and Local Stories

Tales of the Wicklow Hills: 2000 Years of History, Myth, Legend and Local Stories (Legendary Books)

World Literature

Syracuse University Press

Mary Blyth is fired from her job for tardiness after being robbed and nearly murdered. But her luck seems to change for the better when a solicitor informs her that her distant uncle Benjamin Batters has died, naming her his sole heiress! He bequeaths to her a dilapidated old house, where impenetrable iron doors may guard terrible secrets. But the rats that infest the house, and the spirits that seem to haunt it, are not her only concerns. A trio of grotesque and ruthless thugs will stop at nothing to gain entrance to the house and the secrets it conceals. As the mystery deepens, a more frightening question arises: Is Benjamin Batters playing a murderous game from beyond the grave, or is he still alive? The novel's relentless action builds in a crescendo until the horrifying truth of Batters's fate is finally revealed! Richard Marsh's The Joss (1901) can be read as a companion volume to his most famous novel, The Beetle (1897), which in its time outsold even Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Like The Beetle, The Joss features a thrilling tale told from multiple points of view and a hideous, subhuman monster from the East. The Valancourt Books edition reprints the rare 1901 first edition, which survives in only a handful of copies worldwide, complete with a facsimile of its cover.

The Joss: A Reversion

United States

Valancourt Books

Review\n"Ripe with melodrama and purple prose...Marsh creates an eerie atmosphere." ― Publishers Weekly\n"This will appeal to a wide range of readers. The universal ick factor of creepy crawlies additionally ensures that this crowdpleaser from the past will continue to strike fear in the hearts and minds of 21st-century readers." ― Library Journal\n"This series is a fun new way to encounter the spine-tinglers of yesteryear." ― Booklist\n"A fine period piece, as well as an entertaining mystery that has withstood the test of time." ― NY Journal of Books\n"A fun new way to encounter the spine-tinglers of yesteryear." ―Booklist 
A horror classic for the modern reader, presented by the Horror Writers Association. 
Rediscover the classic and come face-to-face with a creature "born of neither god nor man" 
First published in 1897, Richard Marsh's classic work of gothic horror, The Beetle, opens with Robert Holt, an out-of-work clerk seeking shelter in an abandoned house. He comes face to face with a fantastical creature with supernatural and hypnotic powers; a creature who can transform at will between its human and beetle forms and who wrecks havoc when he preys on young middle-class Britons. 
Featuring an introduction by bestselling author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, the Haunted Library Horror Classics edition of The Beetle is a tale of revenge that takes the reader on a dark journey, one that explores the crisis of late imperial England through a fantastical and horrific lens.

The Beetle (Haunted Library Horror Classics)

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Leslie S. Klinger

Eric J. Guignard

Poisoned Pen Press

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

A Second Coming

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Books by Richard Marsh