Possible Clues:

• Measure of Balzac readership
• Monster Hercules slew in lengthy drama
• Small red-berried tree
• Monster featuring in trashy drama
• Cut off its head, or one of them, and you're left with a dry mixture
• Nine-headed monster killed by Hercules
• For whom cuts said to double growth
• When heads are cut from this mythical odious creature, maybe its new ones appear?
• Hercules victim
• Filthy dragon - just some monster!