This celebrated Victorian horror story by Richard Marsh, was originally published in serialized form in 1897. The Beetle tells the tale of an evil Ancient Egyptian spirit seeking revenge on an up-and-coming British politician, Paul Lessingham. The shape-shifting creature that pursues Lessingham is possessed of hypnotic powers and takes different forms, both male and female, as well as morphing into a beetle--a figure that induces terror in its victims. This creepy, gothic tale is told by a series of protagonists, whose accounts are collected by a detective who assists in tracking the creature to its final mysterious end. The Beetle has been viewed by some as a critique of British imperial attitudes in the late Victorian era.