by Sax Rohmer
“Your long reign, Sir Denis, is ending. A blacker tragedy than any I had dreamt of will end your Empire. It is Fate that both of us must now look on. I thank my gods that the consummation will not be seen by me.
“The woman you know as Fah Lo Suee—it was her pet name in nursery days—is my child by a Russian mother. In her, Sir Denis, I share the sorrow of Shakespeare’s King Lear… She has reawakened a power which I had buried. I cannot condemn her. She is my flesh. But in China we expect, and exact, obedience. The Si-Fan is a society older than Buddhism and more flexible. Its ruler wields a sword none can withstand. For many years Si-Fan has slumbered. Fah Lo Suee has dared to awaken it!”
He turned his dreadful eyes on me for the first time since he had begun to speak.
“Mr. Greville, you cannot know what control of that organization means! Misdirected, at such a crisis of history as this, it could only mean another world war! I dragged myself from retirement”—he looked again at Nayland Smith—“to check the madness of Fah Lo Suee. Some harm she has done. But I have succeeded. Tonight, again, I am lord of the Si-Fan!”
Quivering, he rested on his stick.
“I had never dreamt,” said Nayland Smith, “that I should live to applaud your success.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu turned and walked to the lacquer door. Reaching it:
“If you were free,” he replied, “it would be your duty to detain me. My plans are made. Fah Lo Suee will trouble you no more. Overtake me if you wish—and if you can. I am indifferent to the issue, Sir Denis, but I leave England tonight. Si-Fan will sleep again. The balance of world power will be readjusted—but not as she had planned.
“In half an hour I will cause Superintendent Weymouth—whom I esteem—to be informed that you are here. Miss Barton, during that period, must remain locked in a room above. Greeting and goodbye, Sir Denis. Greeting and good-bye, Mr. Greville.”
He went out and closed the door…
Nearly a year has passed since that night when for the first, and I pray for the last, time I found myself face to face with Dr. Fu-Manchu— the world’s greatest criminal, perhaps the world’s supreme genius— and a man of his word.
Unable to credit the facts, a few minutes after his disappearance, I shouted Rima’s name.
She replied—her voice reaching me dimly from some higher room. She was safe, but locked in…
And an hour later, Weymouth arrived—to find Nayland Smith at last disentangled from the cunning knots of the Sea-Dyak!
“It was possible, after all, Greville! But a damned long business!”
I write these concluding notes before my tent in Sir Lionel Barton’s camp on the site of ancient Nineveh. Sunset draws near, and I can see Rima, a camera slung over her shoulder, coming down the slope.
We are to be married on our return to London.
Of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Fah Lo Suee, and their terrible escort, no trace was ever discovered!
Even the body of Li King Su was spirited away. Six months of intense and world-wide activity, directed by Nayland Smith, resulted in… nothing! “My plans are made,” that great and evil man had said.
Sometimes I doubt if it ever happened. Sometimes I wonder if it is really finished. Before me, on the box which is my extemporized writing desk, lies a big emerald set in an antique silver ring. It reached me only a month ago in a package posted from Hong Kong. There was no note inside…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sax Rohmer was born Arthur Henry Ward in 1883, in Birmingham, England, adding “Sarsfield” to his name in 1901. He was four years old when Sherlock Holmes appeared in print, five when the Jack the Ripper murders began, and sixteen when H.G. Wells’ Martians invaded.
Initially pursuing a career as a civil servant, he turned to writing as a journalist, poet, comedy sketch writer, and songwriter in British music halls. At age 20 he submitted the short story “The Mysterious Mummy” to Pearson’s magazine and “The Leopard-Couch” to Chamber’s Journal. Both were published under the byline “A. Sarsfield Ward.”
Ward’s Bohemian associates Cumper, Bailey, and Dodgson gave him the nickname “Digger,” which he used as his byline on several serialized stories. Then, in 1908, the song “Bang Went the Chance of a Lifetime” appeared under the byline “Sax Rohmer.” Becoming immersed in theosophy, alchemy, and mysticism, Ward decided the name was appropriate to his writing, so when “The Zayat Kiss” first appeared in The Story-Teller magazine in October, 1912, it was credited to Sax Rohmer.
That was the first story featuring Fu-Manchu, and the first portion of the novel The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Novels such as The Yellow Claw, Tales of Secret Egypt, Dope, The Dream Detective, The Green Eyes of Bast, and Tales of Chinatown made Rohmer one of the most successful novelists of the 1920s and 1930s.
There are fourteen Fu-Manchu novels, and the character has been featured in radio, television, comic strips, and comic books. He first appeared in film in 1923, and has been portrayed by such actors as Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Peter Sellers, and Nicolas Cage.
Rohmer died in 1959, a victim of an outbreak of the type A influenza known as the Asian flu.
APPRECIATING DOCTOR FU-MANCHU
BY LESLIE S. KLINGER
The “yellow peril”—that stereotypical threat of Asian conquest—seized the public imagination in the late nineteenth century, in political diatribes and in fiction. While several authors exploited this fear, the work of Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer, stood out.
Dr. Fu-Manchu was born in Rohmer’s short story “The Zayat Kiss,” which first appeared in a British magazine in 1912. Nine more stories quickly appeared and, in 1913, the tales were collected as The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu in America). The Doctor appeared in two more series before the end of the Great War, collected as The Devil Doctor (The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu) and The Si-Fan Mysteries (The Hand of Fu-Manchu).
After a fourteen-year absence, the Doctor reappeared in 1931, in The Daughter of Fu-Manchu. There were nine more novels, continuing until Rohmer’s death in 1959, when Emperor Fu-Manchu was published. Four stories, which had previously appeared only in magazines, were published in 1973 as The Wrath of Fu-Manchu.
The Fu-Manchu stories also have been the basis of numerous motion pictures, most famously the 1932 MGM film The Mask of Fu-Manchu, featuring Boris Karloff as the Doctor.
In the early stories, Fu-Manchu and his cohorts are the “yellow menace,” whose aim is to establish domination of the Asian races. In the 1930s Fu-Manchu foments political dissension among the working classes. By the 1940s, as the wars in Europe and Asia threaten terrible destruction, Fu-Manchu works to depose other world leaders and defeat the Communists in Russia and China.
Rohmer undoubtedly read the works of Conan Doyle, and there is a strong resemblance between Nayland Smith and Holmes. There are also marked parallels between the four doctors, Petrie and Watson as the narrator-comrades, and Dr. Fu-Manchu and Professor Moriarty as the arch-villains.
The emphasis is on fast-paced action set in exotic locations, evocatively described in luxuriant detail, with countless thrills occurring to the unrelenting ticking of a tightly wound clock. Strong romantic elements and sensually described, sexually attractive women appear throughout the tales, but ultimately it is the fantastic nature of the adventures that appeal.
This is the continuing appeal of Dr. Fu-Manchu, for despite his occasional tactic of alliance with the West, he unrelentingly pursued his own agenda of world domination. In the long run, Rohmer’s depiction of Fu-Manchu rose above the fears and prejudices that may have created him to become a picture of a timeless and implacable creature of menace.
A complete version of this essay can be found in The Mystery of Fu-Manchu, also available from Titan Books.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:
THE COMPLETE FU-MANCHU SERIES
Sax Rohmer
Available now:
THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE
RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU
Coming soon:
THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU
THE BRIDE OF FU-MANCHU
THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU
PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU
THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU
THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU
THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU
RE-ENTER FU-MANCHU
EMPEROR FU-MANCHU
THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU AND OTHER STORIES
WWW.TITANBOOKS.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a series of handsomely designed detective stories.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes encapsulate the most varied and thrilling cases of the world’s greatest detective.
THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN
by Daniel Stashower
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman
THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD
by David Stuart Davies
THE STALWART COMPANIONS
by H. Paul Jeffers
THE VEILED DETECTIVE
by David Stuart Davies
THE MAN FROM HELL
by Barrie Roberts
SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE
by Fred Saberhagen
THE SEVENTH BULLET
by Daniel D. Victor
THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS
by Edward B. Hanna
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES
by Loren D. Estleman
THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA
by Sam Siciliano
THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
by Richard L. Boyer
THE PEERLESS PEER
by Philip Jose Farmer
THE STAR OF INDIA
by Carole Buggé
THE WEB WEAVER
by Sam Siciliano
THE TITANIC TRAGEDY
by William Seil
WWW.TITANBOOKS.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:
THE HARRY HOUDINI MYSTERIES
Daniel Stashower
Available now:
THE DIME MUSEUM MURDERS
THE FLOATING LADY MURDER
THE HOUDINI SPECTER
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion…
A thrilling series from the author of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Ectoplasmic Man.
WWW.TITANBOOKS.COM