PAYMENT OPTIONS

Forthcoming titles

(Book titles are subject to change)

A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Richard Marsh: Volume 4

enlarge Click on image to enlarge
enlarge Mouse over the image to zoom in
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Richard Marsh: Volume 4
Leonaur Original
Qty:     - OR -   Add to Wish List

Author(s): Richard Marsh
Date Published: 2012/04
Page Count: 552
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-851-4
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-850-7

The fourth volume of a unique collection of bizarre tales from a master of the genre

Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of British born author Richard Bernard Heldman (1857-1916). His most famous work of supernatural fiction, The Beetle, was published in 1897, the same year as Bram Stoker’s tale of the vampire Count Dracula, and it is believed that initially Marsh’s book, which also features a bizarre and sinister figure capable of ‘shape shifting,’ was even more popular with readers than Stoker’s. Today Marsh’s book is still widely regarded as a classic of its genre. Although a prolific author who wrote in a number of genres including adventure fiction under his real name, Marsh is principally remembered as a writer of supernatural thrillers and his output in this field was prodigious. Most aficionados of the genre have heard of The Beetle, but this special Leonaur collection of the author’s excursions into the other worldly and strange extends to six satisfyingly substantial volumes containing many tales that will be unfamiliar to modern readers.
In this fourth volume readers will find two novels, ‘Tom Ossington’s Ghost’ and ‘The House of Mystery,’ and six short stories of the strange and unusual.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

He looked round the room; his glance falling on the unconscious girl, who still sat perched, like a limp lay figure, on her backless chair. As he realised her presence, a change came over his countenance, which was almost too horrible to contemplate. In that instant he crossed the border line which divides the insane from the sane. The wild beast which was at the back of him came to the front. The man was mad. He grinned a madman’s grin.<br>
‘It is for you—it is for you I am in this hole. It is all your fault—all yours. You dear little child! You jade! Well, they will get me, but that is all they will get; they will not get much of you, that I promise them. I will be even with them before they—’ He chucked himself, with a significant gesture, under his chin. ‘What shall I do to you? Let me consider. What shall I do to you, that shall destroy you altogether, and hurt them most? Shall I—shall I—?’<br>
A demoniac glare came on to his face—the lust of a satyr. After a moment or two, however, the expression faded, giving place to one which was not very much more pleasant.<br>
‘No, there is not time; I might be interrupted. Besides, I can do better. I will take it from you, not only your innocence, I will take your all. You hussy!’ He struck her smartly on either cheek. ‘Why do you not rise when I come into the room, you insolent animal? Stand up!’ She stood up instantly, the marks on her cheeks showing where his fingers had been. He noticed them. ‘What is that upon your face? How dare you have that redness on your face because I have the condescension just to touch you? How dare you?’ He struck her again, three or four times in succession. ‘You see, that is what you get for having a redness on your face, and that is only the beginning. Attention! Look straight into my eyes—for the last time in your life!’<br>
As the man’s great yearning, flaming eyes met hers, seeming to threaten to draw them from their sockets by sheer force of repulsive attraction, his continually increasing agitation at once affected her—in a moment she was all of a twitch. He regarded her as some hungry brute might the helpless victim which it proposes to presently devour—she hanging on his glances in a spasm of expectant agony. The muscles of his face began to work, he opened his mouth, raising his lips so that the yellow teeth were seen beneath, each instant his appearance became more ogre-like, when a convulsive shiver passed over him; he withdrew his eyes from her face, twisted his head round on his neck, and listened.<br>
‘What’s that? Who is that upon the stairs? Have they come already? My stars! I must be quick, or they will beat me at all points.’<br>
Back went his face towards hers. Again he fixed on her his awful glare. Presently there recommenced that strange, vibrative movement of his entire frame, as if it were the natural and inevitable response to the enormous strain which he was plainly putting on all his nervous forces. He gibbered to himself in a kind of frenzy.<br>
‘Quick! Quick! Come out of her, life, come out of her! Quick! quick! quick!’<br>
It seemed as if, in answer to his conjurations, life did come out of her, actually and literally, so to speak grain by grain, drop by drop. He seemed, by the exercise of some force, which was either prehensile or sectional, to be extracting the essence from her vital tissues—that essence which gave them being. So that while each second she appeared to shrink and shrivel and grow less, he increased and swelled, dominating her with a violence, both muscular and mental, which became more and more disproportionate to her own.<br>
It was strange to see her swaying as he swayed, her very finger-tips keeping time with his in a sort of rhythmic echo. The motion of every muscle in his body she imitated with marvellous fidelity; only there was this difference, that, while his movements became more strenuous, hers became perceptibly weaker, and still more weak, until the only thing of which she seemed capable was a continuous tremor.<br>
It was then that he appeared to put forth his utmost strength; to project his personality most completely into hers; to draw from her the last remnants of her vital force. It was then, too, that there commenced in her that backward, downward movement, which was so slow that the wonder grew as to what were the means which held her suspended in midair. He bent over her, forward, as she went back, so that, as the distance between them—at most, three or four inches—remained the same, it seemed plain that it was from him the suspensive force must issue; but what was its nature, nothing went to show.<br>
He finished, as he had done in the course of what he had been pleased to call his ‘little experiment,’ by laying her on the floor, stiff and stark like a corpse, he stooping and gloating over her like some triumphant demon. A casual intruder would have declared she was a corpse—she had all the outward resemblance. He placed his hand upon her bosom, his ear against her lips, his fingers on her pulse; the result was as he desired.<br>
‘There is not a trace of respiration, not a trace. I have drawn the life all out of her into me. I feel it in my veins; oh yes, I feel it. It is good to have her life as well as mine; it makes me feel young again, and strong. It would be well always to have a young girl, pretty, in good health, from whom to draw a fresh stock of life.’ He turned her over with his foot, as if she were a log. ‘She is as good as dead, and better. No one will be able to put life back into her but me. And I—I shall not choose. No, I shall not choose; I think not, except on my own terms, which will be high.<br> Even should someone else be able to put life back in her, it will not be her own life—that I have; it will be someone else’s life.
You may also like