12 h 50 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 50 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the shelter you find on a wet London night belongs to something that can steal your will?
In Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, hungry, unemployed clerk Robert Holt enters a house that seems empty. Its owner is a shape-shifting creature with the power to bend minds. Forced to steal papers from rising politician Paul Lessingham, Holt becomes a tool in a revenge rooted in Lessingham’s hidden past. Shelter turns into captivity, and fear follows him into the streets.
The story passes from Holt to proud inventor Sydney Atherton, spirited Marjorie Lindon, and private detective Augustus Champnell. Each holds only part of the mystery. Atherton loves Marjorie and resents Lessingham, her fiancé; Marjorie herself becomes hunted. Across cheap lodgings and grand drawing rooms, personal loyalties meet a danger that reason alone may not explain.
What you’ll discover
- A will under siege Follow Holt into the terror of obeying a master he cannot refuse.
- Four voices, scattered clues Piece together the danger as each narrator reveals a different part of the mystery.
- Love tangled with rivalry Meet an inventor whose love for Marjorie sharpens his resentment of Lessingham.
- London behind the fog Move through rain-soaked streets, poor lodgings, and drawing rooms shadowed by the same threat.
- Fear beneath the shocks Explore a Gothic tale that exposes Victorian Britain’s fear of the foreign.
Who will love it
For readers who love fog-bound Gothic tales, shocking mysteries and the roots of the modern monster story, and anyone curious about Dracula's rival.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A ruined clerk walks into the rain
- The thing in the empty house
- Forced to steal for a master he cannot refuse
- Holt runs and the story changes hands
- An inventor, a rival and a bitter love
- Marjorie Lindon and the man with a secret
- A detective gathers the scattered threads
- What the book is really afraid of
- Four voices, a shifting mask and a long afterlife
Who’s who
- Robert HoltA hungry, unemployed clerk who takes shelter in an empty house and is forced to do the bidding of its sinister owner.
- The BeetleA shape-shifting being from the East, with the power to bend minds, who has come to London to take revenge.
- Paul LessinghamA rising politician and strong public speaker, engaged to Marjorie, who carries a painful secret from his past.
- Marjorie LindonA spirited young woman, loyal to Lessingham, who finds herself hunted and who tells the third part of the story.
- Sydney AthertonA clever, proud inventor who loves Marjorie, resents Lessingham, and meets the creature despite his scorn for the supernatural.
- Augustus ChampnellA calm private inquiry agent who sets out to join the scattered clues and find the source of the danger.
- Dora GraylingMarjorie's friend, warm and plain-spoken, who cares for Atherton and is drawn into the same circle of danger.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 12 h 50 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Le Scarabée in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Le Scarabée
by Richard Marsh · 1897
A shape-shifting creature stalks London, bending human wills as it pursues a politician with a secret past.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Beetle is a horror novel by Richard Marsh, published in 1897, the same year as Dracula by Bram Stoker. It first appeared as a serial under another title and then came out as a book.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A ruined clerk walks into the rain
The book opens with Robert Holt, a clerk who has lost his job and spent his last coins. He has walked the streets of London looking for work and has found none. He is hungry, cold and soaked by a hard rain. Marsh uses his misery to set the tone. This is a city where a man can fall out of sight in a single season, and nobody will notice.
Holt has been turned away from a night shelter, and he has no bed to go to. He drifts through the outskirts of the city, far from the busy centre. At last he sees a house that looks empty. No light shows, and a window stands open. A man in his state does not think long. He wants a roof over his head, so he goes in.
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What is The Beetle by Richard Marsh about?
It is a Gothic horror novel set in London. A shape-shifting creature from the East, able to control minds, pursues a politician named Paul Lessingham to take revenge for something in his past, drawing in several people around him.
Is The Beetle better than Dracula?
They are different books. Both came out in 1897, and both use several narrators. The Beetle is faster and more sensational, and it was widely read at first, while Dracula has stayed more widely known.
Who tells the story in The Beetle?
Four people tell it in turn: Robert Holt, a ruined clerk, Sydney Atherton, an inventor, Marjorie Lindon, the politician's fiancée, and Augustus Champnell, a private detective who pieces the events together.
The author
Richard Marsh
1857–1915 · English horror novelist
Richard Marsh was the pen name of Richard Bernard Heldmann, a British author born in London in 1857. He lived in England and died in 1915. He wrote horror, crime, and humorous fiction. His novel The Beetle appeared in 1897. He also published novels and short stories under his own name.
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