'Both in Men's Clothing': Gender, Sovereignty and Insecurity in Richard Marsh's The Beetle

Of Mahatmas and Chelas: Theosophy and the “Cartography of the Supernatural” in Richard Marsh and F. Anstey

“…In this case, however, his linguistic inability is likely a fallout of his Norwegian-German origin. The text adopts what is at least partially a xenophobic approach to Nebelson, often exposing him as ignorant and undeserving and describing him as speaking English with a Germanic intonation and "with an amount of fluency that rendered him occasionally unintelligible" (Anstey 1886: 4 The Beetle has received extensive attention from critics interested in anxieties surrounding issues of gender, race, animalism, monstrosity, eugenics, and cross-dressing (Hurley 1993;Margree 2007; Allin 2015; Jones 2011; Stuart 2018; Harris and Vernooy 2012). Höglund (2013), Vuohelainen (2015), Margree et al (2018b) and Bhattacharjee (2019) address a wider variety of Marsh's fiction.…”

Review of Gender, the New Woman, and the Monster by Elizabeth D. Macaluso

“…Bram Stoker's Dracula has long been a popular text for exploring issues of gender and monstrosity, Richard Marsh's The Beetle has amassed a decent body of criticism, and Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire is in the process of doing so. The New Woman has featured in critical discussions of all three texts (for example, respectively, Senf 1982;Margree 2007;Hammack 2008). Nevertheless, the endless adaptability of the Gothic and its monsters, which invites multiple queer readings that disturb gender distinctions, means that there is certainly space for another critical contribution to this area.…”

“…without explaining why Holt (the victim) should be perceived as "gay" (44). This scene calls for more sensitive and nuanced consideration (see, for example, Margree 2007). Such an approach does not substantiate the claim that the "book will show that the subject of gender, at the fin de siècle, is more complex than scholars have thought" (8), and limits its contribution to our knowledge of Victorian gender and popular fiction.…”

Richard Marsh's Redundant Crime Narratives: Defining Gender through Crime at the Fin-de-Siècle

“…Many previous discussions of Marsh's male characters focus on his portrayals of masculinity. For instance, Victoria Margree (2007) focuses her representations of the 'New Woman' through the perspective of masculinity. In her explorations of masculinity in The Beetle, she argues that 'the novel's conflation of its 'New Woman' character with the figure of the emasculated and vagrant clerk' exposes how Marsh seeks to 'safeguard a version of virile British masculinity against what are perceived to be joint threats of gender and class instability ' (p. 63).…”

“…In the case of Marjorie Lindon, the beetle's removal of her hair is the textual marker that ends her associations with the 'New Woman' figure. Not only does the text ridicule her potential to be a 'New Woman' through this act, as Victoria Margree (2007) states, the text suggests that 'Marjorie in men's clothing is a parody of a man, she is only a poor imitation of a man ' (p. 74). The action of removing her hair also begins her decline from a potentially strong woman to one that conforms to expectations of the time.…”