Some finger and other marking internally, mostly confined to margins, free endpapers browned, front free endpaper with contemporary gift inscription, frontispiece working loose; covers slightly rubbed at spine edges and fore-corners, spine slightly lightened and with minor shelf-lean, overall VG.
Marsh (Richard) The Beetle.
£480
A Mystery
London, Skeffinton & Son, 1898.
Fourth edition. 8vo. Title printed in red & black, frontispiece and 3 plates, patterned endpapers. Original dark pictorial cloth lettered in gilt & black.
An early edition, in very good condition, of the author’s most well-known title, a classic of Gothic horror.
“In ‘The Beetle’ Marsh introduces the supernatural entity known variously as ‘The Oriental’, ‘The Woman of Songs’ or ‘The Beetle’. This malignant, deformed creature is inhabited by the soul of an ancient Egyptian princess…[and] can turn at will into an insect, or alternatively into a man or a woman or an enigmatic amalgam of both.” – Richard Dalby, Book and Magazine Collector No. 163 (1997).
In stock