Emperor Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer

ROHMER, Sax. Emperor Fu Manchu. London, Herbert Jenkins, 1959.

First edition of Rohmer’s last novel published before his death, in a near fine dust jacket.

Spanning from Fu Manchu’s first appearance in 1912, Rohmer authored a series of fourteen novels featuring the Chinese supervillain. Inscrutable and sinister, Fu Manchu orchestrates crimes through his minions and employs arcane methods, including the use of poisonous animals and natural chemical weapons. The character’s immediate success stemmed from his embodiment of ‘the genre of the “yellow peril” mystery, which expressed Western fears of the expansion of Asian power and influence’ (Britannica). Fu Manchu appeared in several silent and sound films, radio, and comic strips.

Sax Rohmer was the pseudonym of British writer Arthur Henry Ward.

Octavo, pp. 221; near fine; red cloth, spine lettered in black, with the pictorial dust jacket (head and foot of spine a little bumped, extremities of jacket a little worn, price clipped).