Five Fu Manchu Novels by Sax Rohmer

ROHMER, Sax. Five Fu Manchu reprints. London, Cassel & Co., 1956-57.

A 1950s set of five novels featuring Chinese supervillain Fu Manchu, with colourful pictorial dust jackets.

[Consisting of:]

• The Bride of Fu Manchu. Fifth edition 1957 (first edition 1933).

• The Trail of Fu Manchu. Edition 1957 (first edition 1934).

• President Fu Manchu. Edition 1957 (first edition 1936).

• The Drums of Fu Manchu. Edition 1956 (first edition 1939).

• The Island of Fu Manchu. Edition 1956 (first edition 1941).

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.

Five octavo volumes; all very good; original coloured cloth, spine lettered, with the pictorial dust jackets (some light spotting to edges of text blocks, jackets slightly soiled and creased, spines variably sunned, extremities a little worn).