Richard Marsh
Description
Pen-name of Richard Bernard Heldmann (1857-1915), British author known for gothic horror and pulp fiction. >His real name was Heldmann, and under it, in the early 1880s, he published a handful of school stories as well as a rousing, Hentyesque yarn of the sea, The Mutiny on Board the Ship Leander (1882). This was actually dedicated to G. A. Henty. A year later he had become joint-editor, with Henty, of The Union Jack, the weekly adventure-story paper for boys. His career... lasted just six months, when a curt announcement appeared in the paper's columns: 'Mr Heldmann has ceased to be connected in any way with The Union Jack.' >Heldmann then disappeared for nearly a decade... bobbing up again as 'Richard Marsh', the name by which he was known until the day he died (his death certificate is under Heldmann). He wrote over fifty full-length novels (most of them thrillers), and published twenty volumes of short stories, two of which featured his heroine Judith Lee. His most celebrated work, the extraordinary theriomorphic classic The Beetle (1897) was written in a matter of weeks in its year of publication after Marsh had read the newly published Dracula and decided he could do better. >Much of his early work was grisly in the extreme, and he penned some excellent supernatural tales (one of his daughters was the mother of the modern ghost-story writer Robert Aickman). For the last decade of his life, however, he seems to have eschewed horror in favour of milder genres: chronicles of suburbia and detective novels. >>[From Biographical Note by Jack Adrian, in Oxford Twelve Tales of Murder]
Books
Crime and Criminal
When Mr. Thomas Tennant got on a train from Brighton to Victoria he was unpleasantly surprised to see Nelly, a woman that tricked him thousand and one time, and whom he thought she was dead for seven years. They struggle in a carriage and the woman falls through the door and out of the train. Still confused with what happened, at the next station Tennant meets a certain detective who is looking for a missing woman named Louise O'Donnel. Tennant chooses not to share the story of his incident, believing Nelly is now really dead. But is she?
Tales of the Wicklow hills
History, myth, legend, ghost tales, humour and local stories collected from medieval manuscripts and old and modern written and oral sources.
Between the dark and the daylight
Seven stories of abnormal states of consciousness.
The Complete Judith Lee Adventures
The incredible popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories led to an explosion in tales featuring fictional detectives, but few of them were as original or interesting as Richard Marsh's Judith Lee, whose stories appeared alongside Doyle's in Strand Magazine from 1911-1916. "My name is Judith Lee. I am a teacher of the deaf and dumb. I teach them by what is called the oral system - that is, the lip-reading system. I suppose I must have a special sort of knack in that direction, because I do not remember a time when, by merely watching people speaking at a distance, I did not know what they were saying. This knack of mine, in a way, is almost equivalent to another sense. It has led me into the most singular situations, and it has been the cause of many really extraordinary adventures." Thus opens the first of Marsh's charming stories featuring Judith Lee, who thwarts murderers, robbers, burglars, con-men, and spies using her remarkable ability to read lips in multiple languages, along with her quick wits, innate intelligence, and skills in disguise and martial arts. Best known today for his horror fiction, including The Beetle (1897), a Gothic thriller that initially outsold Bram Stoker's Dracula, Richard Marsh (1857-1915) is receiving increased attention in recent years for his other works, including the twenty-two Judith Lee stories, reprinted in full in this volume, along with the original illustrations from the Strand Magazine and a new scholarly introduction and annotations by Minna Vuohelainen, Ph.D.
Meath Folk Tales
Home to the Hill of Tara, the ancient political capital and enduring spiritual heartland of Ireland, County Meath is steeped in history, myth and legend which is celebrated in this selection of traditional tales from across the county, collected and retold by professional storyteller Richard Marsh. It was in Meath that the famous Battle of Gabhra-Achall, which signalled the end of the Fianna in Ireland, was fought; here that St Patrick defeated Garrawog; here that legendary hero Cúchulainn was said to have been born; and here that the Salmon of Wisdom, by which Fionn mac Cumhaill got his Thumb of Wisdom allowing him to answer any question, was caught. All these stories and more are featured in this collection of tales which will take you on an oral tour across the county. On the way you will meet such Meath characters as Meldrum the Prophet, Collier the Robber and Tom the Buddha, as well as encountering fairies, ghosts, werewolves, giants and much more.
Hand of Justice
Rance McClintock and four friends from different parts of his life, yet strangers to each other initially, gather each week for a secreted poker game. For seven years Clint, the cop, the headhunter, the banker and the inventor, all decent men, learn of the devastation and torment brought about by the demons in their respective lives. One by one their worlds become unraveled. They agree to help each other get free of their suffering. None is capable of taking a life in cold blood but they make a pact to guide the... Hand of Justice.
Supernatural & occult fiction: The Beetle
The Beetle, written in 1897 by British author Richard Marsh, is a classic gothic horror story set in Victorian London. The book follows the characters of Paul Lessingham, Robert Holt, Sydney Atherton, Marjorie Lindon and Augustus Champnell all having a different encounter with the Beetle, a shape-shifting ancient Egyptian creature that seeks revenge for wrongs done in Egypt two decades before.