Richard Bernard Heldmann (1857 1915), who wrote under the pen name Richard Marsh, was a bestselling, versatile, and prolific author of gothic, crime, adventure, romance, and comic fiction. His greatest success came in 1897 with the publication of "The Beetle: A Mystery," a novel that articulated many of the key themes of late nineteenth century urban gothic writing and outsold its closest rival, Bram Stoker s "Dracula," well into the twentieth century. This book, the first specifically on Marsh s work, establishes his credentials as a literary force within the late nineteenth century gothic...