The Magnetic Girl is Marsh's quirky take on the story of Cinderella. Tomboyish and somewhat plain Miss Norah, the narrator of the story, has always lived in the shadow of her lovelier sisters Lilian, Doris, Audrey, and Eveleen, and is constantly talked-down to by them and their mother. As the story begins, Norah has had a particularly bad day, and when she receives her first proposal of marriage from the kind but not particularly handsome Benjamin Morgan, she says some awful things to him.
Richard Marsh (12 October 1857 – 9 August 1915) 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,[2] which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and was initially even more popular, outselling Dracula six times over.[3][4] 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".