The Si-Fan Mysteries by Sax Rohmer

ROHMER, Sax. The Si-Fan Mysteries. London, Methuen & Co., 1917.

First edition, scarce, of the third Fu-Manchu title.

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. 306, 31; very good; original rust coloured cloth, lettered in black to the upper board and spine (lean to spine, some spotting to edges of text block, spine very lightly sunned with head and tail bumped); bookseller’s ticket ‘W.H. Smith & Son … Paris’ to front pastedown; ‘Ex libris T. L. Demon’ inked to front flyleaf.