Re-Enter Dr. Fu Manchu
London: Herbert Jenkins, 1957. Octavo, red cloth with spine lettering, 190 pp. The endpapers have some tape marking, and the previous owner's stamp 'P. Parker', light foxing, otherwise a very good copy in the dust jacket. First English edition.
Arthur Henry 'Sarsfield' Ward, Sax Rohmer, was a prolific British music hall comedy sketch writer, poet, and fiction writer. Rohmer's interests for ancient Egypt, East Asia, the Middle East, and the occult led him into fiction writing. Between 1912 and 1913, he published The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (later rebaptised The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu) in serialised form. This marked the success of a long book series constituted of thirteen books revolving around the mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, a criminal mastermind and user of arcane methods, who, for most of the series, plots for world domination only to be stopped by his archnemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, a police commissioner in the Indian Imperial Police.
Some have argued that the character of Fu Manchu was based on American music hall magician William Ellsworth Robinson going by the stage name of Chung Ling Soo and who wore a Mandarin costume and pigtail during his performances. Fu Manchu, who seldom appeared on the page, and his daughter, Fah Lo Suee, were a distorted projection of Rohmer's stereotypes and racism towards Chinese culture and its people which contributed in misrepresenting the Chinese community.
Re-Enter Dr. Fu Manchu is the twelfth book out of 13 in Rohmer's mystery series. The Cold War, the space race between the United States and the then U.S.S.R., as well as Mao Zedong's communist regime in China are used as backdrop in this new instalment taking place in the 1950s. After a decade-long absence, Dr. Fu Manchu re-emerges aiming to take control of the China from the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Sir Denis Nayland Smith pursues his enemy from London to Cairo to New York, determined to finally get his hands on Fu Manchu. Item #3756
Price (AUD): $250.00