Sax Rohmer
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Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (February 15, 1883 - June 1, 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.
Born in Birmingham he had a entirely working class education and early career before beginning to write. His first published work was in 1903, the short story The Mysterious Mummy for Pearson's Weekly. He made his early living writing comedy sketches for performers and short stories and serials for magazines. In 1909 he married Rose Knox. He published his first novel in 1910, Pause! and the first Fu Manchu story, The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu was serialized over 1912-13. It was an immediate success with its pacy and racist story of Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with those featuring Gaston Max or Morris Klaw, made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid writers in of the 1920s and 1930s. But Rohmer was very poor at handling his wealth. After World War II the Rohmers moved to New York.
A number of films were made featuring Dr. Fu Manchu. The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), featuring Boris Karloff, was the best of those produced in the 1930s, mainly because of a wonderfully slinky and sadistic performance by Myrna Loy as Fa Lo See, Fu Manchu's evil daughter. The name was revived in a very variable series starring Christopher Lee in the 1960s with The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968). Pulp film legend Harry Alan Towers produced two films based on the Sumuru character in the 1960s, and an updated space fantasy version in 2002.
Selected Bibliography
- Pause!, 1910
- The Sins of Severac Bablon, 1912
- The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu, 1913
- The Yellow Claw, 1915
- The Devil Doctor, 1916
- The Si-Fan Mysteries, 1917
- Tales of Secret Egypt, 1918
- Dope, 1919
- The Golden Scorpion, 1919
- The Dream Detective, 1920
- Tales of Chinatown, 1922
- Yellow Shadows, 1925
- The Book of Fu Manchu, 1929
- The Daughter of Fu Manchu, 1931
- Fu Manchu's Bride, 1933
- The Drums of Fu Manchu, 1939
- The Shadow of Fu Manchu, 1948
- The Sins of Sumuru, 1950
- The Slaves of Sumuru, 1952
- Virgin in Flames, 1953
- Sand and Satin, 1955
- Sinister Madonna, 1956
- Re-enter Fu Manchu, 1957
External link
- Project Gutenberg e-texts of works by Sax Rohmer (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/author?name=Rohmer,%20Sax)de:Sax Rohmer