Product Description

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies
'I saw him take a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies fell about him...and there issued out of them a monstrous creature of the beetle tribe...'
From out of the dark and mystic Egypt come The Beetle, a creature of horror, 'born of neither God nor man', which can change its form at will. It is bent on revenge for a crime committed against the devotees of an ancient religion. At large in London, it pursues its victims without mercy and no one, it seems, is safe from its gruesome clutches. Richard Marsh's weird, compelling and highly original novel, which once outsold Dracula, is both a horror masterpiece and a fin de siecle melodrama embracing the fears and concerns of late Victorian society. Long out of print, The Beetle is now available in this Wordsworth edition, ready to chill you to the marrow and give you nightmares.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #655785 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
...introduction is excellent, bringing lots of fascinating material to bear on the novel and doing so clearly and persuasively. -- Jonathan Dollimore, author of Sexual Dissidence (Oxford University Press, 1991) and Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture (Penguin, 2001)

...this edition will be coveted by everyone interested in late Victorian fiction. -- Nicholas Daly, Trinity College, Dublin

I enthusiastically recommend this book. -- J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine

The Beetle is a great read... -- J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine

This edition will be coveted by everyone interested in late Victorian fiction... -- Nicholas Daly, Trinity College, Dublin

About the Author
Julian Wolfreys is a Professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainsville.

Customer Reviews

A Good Read for the Right Crowd
Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and Richard Marsh's "The Beetle" were both published in 1897. Surprisingly, "The Beetle" outsold Stoker's novel three-fold in the first few years of their publication. So why has this novel faded into relative obscurity? Because it does not translate well to modern times. Where Stoker's novel still holds many chills for its reader, "The Beetle" is so dated with its blaring xenophobia and chauvinism that the things which are meant to scare us do little more than provide mild amusement.

At this point you may be asking why, if I feel this way, did I give this novel four stars? The answer is simple: it is a wonderful piece for its time and, if viewed through a historic lens, one can see why it was so wildly successful. In many ways, one can compare it to "Dracula", what with its shifting narrators, tightly woven plot, and shape-changing antagonist. If you're into supernatural fiction, Victorian fiction, or some some combination thereof, this is a wonderful book. If you're looking for a terrifying read I doubt you will find this novel satisfactory.

The Beetle, a neglected Victorian horror story
The Beetle, a novel of the occult by Richard Marsh, was, at one time, outselling Bram Stoker's Dracula. Today, it is far less known, but still worth belonging in any collection of weird horror tales. The development is episodic, done from different character's viewpoints, much as Stoker's Dracula was, but the tale is much briefer. We are never given quite the 'in your face' explanation that Stoker had for his novel; instead, we are left with a mysterious being whose origin and nature are tantalizingly hinted at but never fully explained, which is just fine by me. The occasional Victorian sentiments about women and certain cultures must be taken with a grain of salt; after all, they are a product of their time All in all, a worthy read.