# The Beetle (1897)

> The Beetle by Richard Marsh, first published 13 Mar 1897 – 19 Jun 1897: publication record, synopsis, a verified quotation and sources.

Canonical page: https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-beetle/

Title: The Beetle: A Mystery
Author: Richard Marsh
Attribution: Serialised in Answers as 'The Peril of Paul Lessingham: The Story of a Haunted Man'; the book title was The Beetle: A Mystery.
Form: Novel
First appearance: 13 Mar 1897 – 19 Jun 1897 (timeline year 1897)
Themes: The city, Empire, Sexuality and desire, The supernatural

## Publication record

- Serial, 13 Mar 1897 – 19 Jun 1897: Answers, Alfred Harmsworth, London. Fifteen substantial instalments under the title 'The Peril of Paul Lessingham: The Story of a Haunted Man'. Answers was a penny weekly with a reported readership of half a million. [1]
- Volume, Sep 1897: Skeffington & Son, London. Issued 'late September 1897' at six shillings as The Beetle: A Mystery. [1]

## Synopsis

On a wet London night the starving clerk Robert Holt, turned away from a shelter and desperate for a roof, forces his way into an empty house and meets something that is not quite a man or a woman. It bends his will with mesmerism and sends him to rob the home of the rising politician Paul Lessingham, who has a secret from his past in the East. The novel is told in four parts by different witnesses, among them a scientist who is half a friend of Lessingham and half his rival. Marsh makes the city's doss-houses, railway carriages and Westminster the hunting ground of an ancient power.

## Setting

Contemporary 1890s London, with a past in Egypt and the East. Places: London; Westminster; Egypt [2]

## From the text

> ‘No room!--Full up!’ He banged the door in my face. That was the final blow.

Book I, Chapter 1 (Outside). Project Gutenberg ebook #5164: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5164 (Gutenberg ebook 5164 is titled 'The Beetle: A Mystery' and follows the 1897 book form, not the Answers serial text)

## Facts

- The novel first appeared in Answers, Alfred Harmsworth's penny weekly, in fifteen instalments between 13 March and 19 June 1897 as 'The Peril of Paul Lessingham: The Story of a Haunted Man', so it was running before Dracula was published on 26 May 1897. [1, 3]
- In book form it outsold Dracula for years: by 1913 The Beetle was in its fifteenth impression when Dracula had reached its tenth, and a Trinity College Dublin essay on Stoker records that The Beetle significantly outsold Dracula in the year both appeared. [1, 4]
- Vuohelainen places the novel in the 'distinctively urban Gothic' of the 1880s and 1890s, in which, she writes, unwelcome vermin become objects of horror. [1]

## Notes on dates and attribution

- Serial title: the Vuohelainen introduction gives '...The Story of a Haunted Man'.
- Sales: sources differ in how they compare The Beetle with Dracula; only Vuohelainen's impression counts (15th by 1913 against Dracula's 10th) are given, with no multiplier.
- Dracula's publication date: Vuohelainen says June 1897; The National Archives says Wednesday 26 May 1897 (see Dracula).

## Sources

1. Introduction to The Beetle: A Mystery by Richard Marsh, by Minna Vuohelainen (Valancourt Books, 2008, pp. vii-xxx), accepted version. City Research Online, City, University of London. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/19141/1/Vuohelainen%20The%20Beetle%20Introduction.pdf (accessed 2026-10-09)
2. The Beetle: A Mystery (ebook 5164). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5164/pg5164.txt (accessed 2026-10-09)
3. Copyright registration form for Bram Stoker's Dracula (COPY 1/1108). The National Archives (UK). https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/copyright-registration-form-for-bram-stokers-dracula/ (accessed 2026-10-09)
4. Bram Stoker (1847-1912), by Jarlath Killeen. Trinity Writers, Trinity College Dublin. https://www.tcd.ie/trinitywriters/writers/bram-stoker/ (accessed 2026-10-09)