A Duel

"A Duel" by Richard Marsh is a novel written in the early 20th century. The story begins with Isabel discovering the harsh realities of her marriage to Gregory Lamb shortly after their honeymoon, revealing deep financial struggles and the revelations about her husband’s deceit. As tensions rise, Isabel's desperation leads her to make impulsive decisions, ultimately finding herself in an unexpected marriage with a dying man named Cuthbert Grahame, who she believed would be dead shortly after their union. The opening of the book finds Isabel grappling with the shattering news from her husband’s mother, revealing their dire financial circumstances and prompting her to seek freedom from an unfulfilling marriage. In a moment of impulsivity, she steals money from her landlady and attempts to leave but injures her ankle, ultimately being rescued by a doctor. This leads her to Cuthbert Grahame’s bedside, where she is presented with an outrageous proposal to marry him in order to secure a financial inheritance, which she reluctantly accepts. This initial twist sets the stage for a story that explores themes of desperation, marriage, and cunning survival as Isabel navigates her complex new reality of being a wife to an ailing man. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of the English author born Richard Bernard Heldmann. A best-selling and prolific author of the late 19th century and the Edwardian period, Marsh is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle, which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and was initially even more popular, outselling Dracula six times over. The Beetle remained in print until 1960. Marsh produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction and numerous short stories, in genres including horror, crime, romance and humour. Many of these have been republished recently, beginning with The Beetle in 2004. Marsh's grandson Robert Aickman was a notable writer of short "strange stories".