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Fu Manchu #1
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu
Being a Somewhat Detailed Account of the Amazing Adventures of Nayland Smith in His Trailing of the Sinister Chinaman
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu is the first title in the famous series of "Yellow Peril" novels published by English writer Sax Rohmer, aka Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883–1959), between 1913 and 1959. The novel, like its many sequels, pits the "evil genius" of the Far East against the British Duo, Denis Nayland Smith and his sidekick Dr. Petrie.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu is the first title in the famous series of "Yellow Peril" novels published by English writer Sax Rohmer, aka Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883–1959), between 1913 and 1959. The novel, like its many sequels, pits the "evil genius" of the Far East against the British Duo, Denis Nayland Smith and his sidekick Dr. Petrie.
232 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1913
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About the author
Sax Rohmer
494 books125 followersAKA Arthur Sarsfield Ward (real name); Michael Furey.
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (15 February 1883 - 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.
Born in Birmingham to a working class family, Rohmer initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time.
He worked as a poet, songwriter, and comedy sketch writer in Music Hall before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing weird fiction.
Like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, Rohmer claimed membership to one of the factions of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Rohmer also claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned. His physician and family friend, Dr. R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organizations. It is believed that Rohmer may have exaggerated his association in order to boost his literary reputation as an occult writer.
His first published work came in 1903, when the short story The Mysterious Mummy was sold to Pearson's Weekly. He gradually transitioned from writing for Music Hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication. In 1909 he married Rose Elizabeth Knox.
He published his first novel Pause! anonymously in 1910. After penning Little Tich in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the Music Hall entertainer) he issued the first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, was serialized from October 1912 - June 1913. It was an immediate success with its fast-paced story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with his more conventional detective series characters—Paul Harley, Gaston Max, Red Kerry, Morris Klaw, and The Crime Magnet—made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid authors of the 1920s and 1930s.
Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen. Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth, however, and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career. His final success came with a series of novels featuring a female variation on Fu Manchu, Sumuru.
After World War II, the Rohmers moved to New York only returning to London shortly before his death. Rohmer died in 1959 due to an outbreak of influenza ("Asian Flu").
There were thirteen books in the Fu Manchu series in all (not counting the posthumous The Wrath of Fu Manchu. The Sumuru series consist of five books.
His wife published her own mystery novel, Bianca in Black in 1954 under the pen name, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. Some editions of the book mistakenly credit her as Rohmer's daughter. Elizabeth Sax Rohmer and Cay Van Ash, her husband's former assistant, wrote a biography of the author, Master of Villainy, published in 1972.
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (15 February 1883 - 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.
Born in Birmingham to a working class family, Rohmer initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time.
He worked as a poet, songwriter, and comedy sketch writer in Music Hall before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing weird fiction.
Like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, Rohmer claimed membership to one of the factions of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Rohmer also claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned. His physician and family friend, Dr. R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organizations. It is believed that Rohmer may have exaggerated his association in order to boost his literary reputation as an occult writer.
His first published work came in 1903, when the short story The Mysterious Mummy was sold to Pearson's Weekly. He gradually transitioned from writing for Music Hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication. In 1909 he married Rose Elizabeth Knox.
He published his first novel Pause! anonymously in 1910. After penning Little Tich in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the Music Hall entertainer) he issued the first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, was serialized from October 1912 - June 1913. It was an immediate success with its fast-paced story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with his more conventional detective series characters—Paul Harley, Gaston Max, Red Kerry, Morris Klaw, and The Crime Magnet—made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid authors of the 1920s and 1930s.
Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen. Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth, however, and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career. His final success came with a series of novels featuring a female variation on Fu Manchu, Sumuru.
After World War II, the Rohmers moved to New York only returning to London shortly before his death. Rohmer died in 1959 due to an outbreak of influenza ("Asian Flu").
There were thirteen books in the Fu Manchu series in all (not counting the posthumous The Wrath of Fu Manchu. The Sumuru series consist of five books.
His wife published her own mystery novel, Bianca in Black in 1954 under the pen name, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. Some editions of the book mistakenly credit her as Rohmer's daughter. Elizabeth Sax Rohmer and Cay Van Ash, her husband's former assistant, wrote a biography of the author, Master of Villainy, published in 1972.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 355 reviews
May 7, 2019
I like this book, but I feel a little guilty about it. It's not just that it is permeated with orientalist attitudes, but that it makes those attitudes seem less quaint and more sinister because they are reinforced here by blatant racism. It is bad enough that the villain embodies the malevolent cunning of The Inscrutable East, but it is much worse when the hero is repeatedly described as the "savior of the white race."
To appreciate the book as I do--even if you feel guilty about it--it is helpful to realize that part of its inspiration lay in certain contemporary events in China that shook the confidence of the Western mind in much the same way that 9/11 would one hundred years later. Unrest in the Far East--intensified by the Boxer Rebellion in 1899 and culminating in the collapse of the last imperial dynasty in the revolution of 1911--made the colonizing nations more keenly aware of the vast size and instability of China. Many Englishmen and Americans feared that this "Yellow Peril" would soon overwhelm the West by numbers alone.
If Rohmer was a sinophobe, his sinophobia was casual and calculated; his love for the legends of Egypt, Arabia and India, however, was constant and sincere. Essentially an entertainer--he began his literary career as a writer of music hall sketches and songs--Rohmer needed a Chinese super-villain, a sort of racist Bin Laden, to make a pan-Asian conspiracy credible, not for the promotion of any political agenda, but simply to revive in the jaded reader of pulp fiction the potential for fear and terror dormant in this exotic but already familiar lore.
One of the particular advantages of a Chinese villain is that it enables Rohmer to transform prosaic London by evoking the dark romance of great rivers. Fu Manchu is never far from the opium dens and criminal dives of the Chinese dockside community of Limehouse, for it is there on the Thames that the Doctor takes up his residence, as he schemes and consigns the meddling agents of English law to a watery grave. Rohmer frequently makes allusions to the Nile, and the Tigris and Euphrates, thus associating contemporary London with the curses of the pharaohs and the marvels of medieval Baghdad.
Fu Manchu is central to this project, but the character of Koramaneh also plays a crucial role. A beautiful Arab girl sold as a slave to Fu Manchu, she must do the doctor's bidding, but she is nonetheless in love with Petrie, the "Watson" of these adventures, and continually saves him from danger. Her ambivalence creates an ambivalence in the reader, attracting the reader to the exotic East even as Fu Manchu repels him.
Rohmer, the musical hall writer, effectively performs his show biz tricks, and holds us captive in his fantastic, sinister world. I suspect much of the credit for this lies with Koramaneh: rivers may entrance us with journey and mystery, but beauty ensures our seduction.
September 23, 2024
Torn on this one: lots of Sinophobia here - the archetype of so many pulp/comic villains (Ming the Merciless, the Claw, the Yellow Claw...). I read this because Fu Manchu is the Father of Shang-Chi and other characters (Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Dr. James Petrie and Fah Lo Suee) also appear in the Marvel series. Guess I can see why Marvel steered clear of this potential controversy.
June 3, 2016
To a student a literature, there are classics of older times for which allowances that must be made to understand the cultural in which they were written.
And then there's The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
The story is simple enough. Knock-off Sherlock Holmes (henceforth KOSH) returns from Asia, informing Knock-Off of Doctor Watson (henceforth KODW) of the threat of . . .
Well, he doesn't really say, honestly. KOSH just pulls KODW through an entire adventure, occasionally mentioning someone named Fu Manchu without explaining who that person is or what they want. Honestly, the book makes an equal amount of sense at this point if you replace every occurrence of "Fu Manchu" with "Mr. Potato Head."
Eventually, we learn that Fu Manchu is a nefarious Chinese covert agent, working for a secret Chinese council to further his country's interests. With his army of assassins, masters of strange science, and expertise in poisons, Fu Manchu plans to help China rise high on the global stage.
This underscores an important point. Fu Manchu is, by far, the most sympathetic, interesting, and likable character in this book. He's the Chinese James Bond or Nick Fury, committing plans with style and panache, often sparing his enemies' lives, and generally making me wish he'd murder the Baker Street knock-off duo.
Of course, the reader is supposed to find Fu Manchu horrifying because the Chinese people are, Sax Rohmer constantly reminds us, an evil subhuman race of unimaginable cruelty and inscrutable motives.
I've read Lovecraft and the Tarzan novels, and this is one of the most racist things I've ever read. Like, "describing Chinese people with terms like 'chattering' 'simian,' and 'yellow paws'" racist. KODW spends a good chunk of a chapter informing us of how the Chinese in Hawaii are buying scorpions to murder their infant girls with plausible deniability, remarking that only the Chinese have a character capable of producing a Fu Manchu.
Every Chinese person in the book is, obviously enough, an agent of Fu Manchu. Aside from the man himself, only one of them speaks; I didn't understand any his dialogue until I realized I had to read the l's as r's.
This is the core of the book, which never fails to remind us that the central conflict is White vs. Yellow. Other nonwhites don't come out so good either. Rohmer fills a mansion murder scheme with a surprising diversity, only to proceed to generate a singularity of stereotypes.
. . . and we come to the Egyptian love interest.
She's exotic, beautiful, courageous, and KODW apologizes to his reader at the disgust they must have for his attraction to her, as the very idea of a white man loving an Asian is, to him, stomach-turning. KOSH offers sound relationship advice. It's like Cyrano, only the best friend is suggesting the girl in question would quite like being dragged by her hair into a cellar and threatened with a whip. Because Asians.
She doesn't disabuse the notion, basically saying, "Lock me up, and I'll tell you everything! You wanna beat me?" The romantic dynamic between our protagonist and the femme fatale makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like a gender studies textbook.
So there's my conumdrum. There are thrills and mysteries in here that I really liked, escapades and traps, world-building and wonders, and they are awesome. When Fu Manchu needs to eliminate an enemy of Chinese ambition, they are dealt with in ways that perfectly blend pulp and mystery. I was cheering and the ingenuity of several, and there's a kidnapping attempt so brilliant that I want to throw it into my role-playing games.
And then there's Fu Manchu himself.
"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green."
So, surprisingly, no mustache. Like the Holmesian deerstalker, that was added in the films.
Fu Manchu is such a magnificent bastard, I can't help but love him. Once, our putative heroes stand on a dock, watching a ship sailing into the distance as a sign of their defeat in that particular case. KOSH immediately hears Fu's voice at his ear say, "Another victory for China, Mister Knock-off Sherlock Holmes!"
Did you catch that? The mastermind secret agent takes time out of his busy day to perform the 1904 espionage community equivalent of tea-bagging.
It is a thing of beauty to watch Fu Manchu in action. My favorite is from later in the book, where he lays down on a couch surrounded by trapdoors and either pretends or actually does smoke a bowl of opium, waiting for our heroes to rush him like racist Wile E. Coyotes.
All this joy is constantly punctuated by the narrator's reminder that Asians are subhuman.
In short, I hate the heroes and love the villain. So how do I grade this?
Well, I'm going to leave the racism on the table as something that bothers me. I've read a lot of fiction from that period as a longtime subscriber to the H.P.Lovecraft Literary Podcast, and few affected me like this. There's casual racism, there's heavy racism, and them there's this guy.
Sax Rohmer was pissed that he was banned in Nazi Germany, because he asserted his books were in no way ideologically opposed to Nazism. Screw that guy.
But the text does crackle at times. The deathtraps are awesome. Fu Manchu is amazing, strangely honorable, and endlessly creative.
So, here's how you can add two stars, making the review a total of four stars.
a) If I think of KODW as an unreliable narrator chronicling the battle between two equally imperial spies, it works.
b) If you picture the main characters as Inspector Clouseau-level bunglers, that's cool. They're the Colonel Klink of the pulp hero world.
c) If you can admit that a staggeringly racist author can, almost accidentally, create a rich character from the people that he despises.
After all, I truly love the character of Fu Manchu as he's presented here. I thought he was a fascinating badass when I first encountered him in Marvel Comics . . .
. . . as the father of Shang Chi, the Master of Kung-Fu.
Dear merciful Glob, do I want that Shang-Chi: Master of Kung-Fu Omnibus Vol. 1.
I can probably read The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, as long as Fu Manchu is suitably magnificent in how he foils our "heroes." Guess what book I'm looking forward to reading more?
Yup, Ten Years Beyond Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Matches Wits with the Diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu is coming to me through the library system now. I bet the actual Holmes will have a lot less cringe-worthy dialogue about Chinese cruelty.
April 30, 2019
"The most brilliant criminal mind to have existed in generations!" is how our Asian Moriarty is breathlessly described in this shameless Sherlock Holmes ripoff, featuring a doctor sidekick narrating an adventure in which the protagonist is his brilliant detectiveish friend.
The problem with hyperbole is that you have to back it up. Conan Doyle is great at this. There's this fine line: you want to leave the reader unable, usually, to solve the mystery, but when you do the big reveal at the end you want the reader not to feel cheated. I have to think, "I didn't get that - but I could have. I almost did. It makes sense." Conan Doyle pioneered that, as far as I know. (Don't bring up Dupin! Holmes owes that guy, but not for this. Poe sucked at this. "Murders at the Rue Morgue" spoiler: )
But there's a less-discussed trick that can also be effective: the obvious, shitty reveal that you totally guessed 50 pages ago. You think you don't like that, but actually you sortof do, don't you? For the same reason you enjoy the Metro's crossword puzzles or yelling out Jeopardy answers: because it makes you feel smart. You may not come away with the utmost respect for the author...but you might buy his next book anyway, because it's nice to feel smart. I'm convinced that some authors do this on purpose. It's a craven strategy, but whatever works I guess.
So...Fu Manchu sometimes pulls off some neat tricks. The explanation for the corpses with mutilated hands was pretty fun, and there's a terrific scene near the end involving mushrooms. And for all I know the old trapdoor trick was invented by Fu Manchu. (Good question, actually.) But still...most of the time, you can guess what's happened way before Nayland Smith does, which makes it hard to respect him as a genius, which therefore makes it hard to respect the insidious Chinaman who's constantly outsmarting him.
And speaking of Chinamen, have you heard that this book is SUPER CRAZY RACIST? Well, you heard right! It is hilariously, horribly racist, in that adorable old-timey racist way: "Unless you have been in their clutches, you can never imagine the depths of cruelty to which a Chinaman is capable of stooping." You just want to pinch racism's cheek when it comes like that. I realize that may not be everyone's reaction to horrendous racism, and I apologize for my flippancy. I found it hard to get as worked up about this book as I did about, like, Gone With The Wind, because I couldn't take any of it seriously.
This is pulp fiction at its pulpiest. Narrow escapes, beautiful exotic women, diabolical traps, madmen, gaping plot holes...Sure, man. I dug it.
The problem with hyperbole is that you have to back it up. Conan Doyle is great at this. There's this fine line: you want to leave the reader unable, usually, to solve the mystery, but when you do the big reveal at the end you want the reader not to feel cheated. I have to think, "I didn't get that - but I could have. I almost did. It makes sense." Conan Doyle pioneered that, as far as I know. (Don't bring up Dupin! Holmes owes that guy, but not for this. Poe sucked at this. "Murders at the Rue Morgue" spoiler: )
But there's a less-discussed trick that can also be effective: the obvious, shitty reveal that you totally guessed 50 pages ago. You think you don't like that, but actually you sortof do, don't you? For the same reason you enjoy the Metro's crossword puzzles or yelling out Jeopardy answers: because it makes you feel smart. You may not come away with the utmost respect for the author...but you might buy his next book anyway, because it's nice to feel smart. I'm convinced that some authors do this on purpose. It's a craven strategy, but whatever works I guess.
So...Fu Manchu sometimes pulls off some neat tricks. The explanation for the corpses with mutilated hands was pretty fun, and there's a terrific scene near the end involving mushrooms. And for all I know the old trapdoor trick was invented by Fu Manchu. (Good question, actually.) But still...most of the time, you can guess what's happened way before Nayland Smith does, which makes it hard to respect him as a genius, which therefore makes it hard to respect the insidious Chinaman who's constantly outsmarting him.
And speaking of Chinamen, have you heard that this book is SUPER CRAZY RACIST? Well, you heard right! It is hilariously, horribly racist, in that adorable old-timey racist way: "Unless you have been in their clutches, you can never imagine the depths of cruelty to which a Chinaman is capable of stooping." You just want to pinch racism's cheek when it comes like that. I realize that may not be everyone's reaction to horrendous racism, and I apologize for my flippancy. I found it hard to get as worked up about this book as I did about, like, Gone With The Wind, because I couldn't take any of it seriously.
This is pulp fiction at its pulpiest. Narrow escapes, beautiful exotic women, diabolical traps, madmen, gaping plot holes...Sure, man. I dug it.
January 15, 2021
The first Fu-Manchu novel, originally published in 1913 by Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Ward) does an excellent job of introducing readers to the “most diabolical evil genius of all time”. Published in the UK under the name, “The Mysterious Fu-Manchu”, the story is told from the first person perspective of Dr. Petrie who acts as a sort of Watson to the more adventuresome Nayland Smith, a colonial police commissioner in Burma who has been granted a roving commission that allows him to utilize any group that can help him in his mission. When this book was written the western world was in the midst of the “Yellow Peril” and thus a diabolical mastermind intent on subjugating the West was a well-received idea.
The book is filled with idealized adventure much as one would find in the pulps and it never lets up on the accelerator. I like the way Dr. Fu-Manchu scorns the use of guns or explosives in favor of thugs with knives, members of secret societies, or using "pythons and cobras ... fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli ... my black spiders" and other natural chemical weapons. Perilous adventure for Dr. Petrie and square-jawed Nayland Smith to be sure.
Many readers today are unable to cope with the racism inherent in such a book, but I can take it as it was written and consider the times in which it takes place. I may cringe now and again but there is always a poisonous spider or deadly mold trap coming to take my mind away.
I’ve been reading similar pulp-era books for years but lately have made a plan to introduce myself to a new character each year. Last year was The Shadow and this year it’s Dr. Fu-Manchu. It’s a great way to expand my universe. Based on this first novel, it’s going to be a good year.
The book is filled with idealized adventure much as one would find in the pulps and it never lets up on the accelerator. I like the way Dr. Fu-Manchu scorns the use of guns or explosives in favor of thugs with knives, members of secret societies, or using "pythons and cobras ... fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli ... my black spiders" and other natural chemical weapons. Perilous adventure for Dr. Petrie and square-jawed Nayland Smith to be sure.
Many readers today are unable to cope with the racism inherent in such a book, but I can take it as it was written and consider the times in which it takes place. I may cringe now and again but there is always a poisonous spider or deadly mold trap coming to take my mind away.
I’ve been reading similar pulp-era books for years but lately have made a plan to introduce myself to a new character each year. Last year was The Shadow and this year it’s Dr. Fu-Manchu. It’s a great way to expand my universe. Based on this first novel, it’s going to be a good year.
July 14, 2018
'The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu' is the American title for 'The Mystery of Fu Manchu' (published in the UK in 1913) which, in turn, was the novelisation of a series of short stories by Sax Rohmer published in 1912.
It is an exercise in sustained hysteria which is only partly explained by the original short story magazine format with its requirement for cliff hangars and constant thrills. Yet it remains a classic as the quintessential expression of Edwardian imperial paranoia and self-image.
I reviewed Phil Baker's biography of Sax Rohmer at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... so there is no need to add to the analysis there. All we need to know here is that an early Fu Manchu novel should be on the reading list of any ironical post-modern Englishman.
Whatever you do, do not take this book too seriously. Just go with the maniacal flow and enjoy it. Be a bit steampunk and fantasise about living in a world where people like Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie (the Holmes and Watson of the story) could exist and be taken seriously.
The evil villain Fu Manchu is truly evil but he is granted high intelligence and has the same cause as Captain Nemo, a loathing of British imperialism. There is an ambiguity in the tale as our heroes recognise that their Chinese antagonist is actually much brighter than they are.
In the end, Nayland Smith and Petrie win because they are dogged, persistent and stout-hearted and because they are lucky. After a while, we might even sympathise with Fu Manchu whose brilliant evil plans are constantly thwarted by an excitable mid-ranking official and an amateur.
My old Victorian-founded grammar school had a school song with the lines 'sentiment is more than skill'. The pragmatic anti-intellectualism, gamesmanship and moral self-righteousness of the English middle classes are well expressed in this tale of secret service defence of the imperial realm.
Later in the series, Fu Manchu becomes a little more human and less of a theatrical villain (one who is not merely inscrutable but genuinely gratuitously murderous and cruel) but, here, the best word for him comes from Victorian melodrama - daastardly.
The 'novel' is little more than a series of unusual crimes committed or threatened, solved or thwarted by our heroes, amidst much mystery and puzzlement. More often than not, we see a life-threatening event cunningly pre-planned by the evil doctor from which they bound free.
There is a sustained love interest in the beautiful Arab slave Karamaneh whose ambiguous charms express all the yearning of the English middle class male reader for the louche sexual pleasures of freedom from responsibility.
Pages could be written on the sexual aspects of the plot but suffice it to say that Petrie's love for this exotic woman (which she reciprocates) frequently results in the plans of the heroes coming to naught (largely to permit the next story in the series).
Petrie is the sort of man who would later be characterised as Colonel Blimp in Powell and Pressburger's 1943 film. Since Petrie (like Watson) tells the tale we can only surmise Nayland Smith's periodic despair at the plot-necessary stupidity of his dim but honourable amanuensis.
Still, they triumph in the end though not enough to stop 14 official (one posthumous) Rohmer outings for the villain, five or six authorised post-Rohmer continuations and at least five and probably many more appearances in the fiction of other writers.
The novel is like a time travel experience to another moral world, wholly incomparable to our own, and it is definitely not great literature but its verve and its essential simplicity as well as its almost ridiculous story line make it an enjoyable read from the age of Zane Grey and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
January 26, 2019
This is the first in a series of popular Techno-thriller; Spy fiction written before WWI. It’s a Sherlock Holmes-like story. It pits English gentlemen against an Oriental [sic], evil, genius committing acts of espionage, kidnapping and assassination in London for a shadowy Chinese political movement. (A surprisingly modern premise.) It’s a good early example of the techno-thriller/spy fiction genres, although a modern reader may find the style to be peculiar when compared to modern examples of the genres. However, the narration is period-perfect, better than can be found in contemporary historical fiction. It’s a real, if somewhat uncomfortable example of period fiction for readers interested in the popular culture of the early Windsor period of English history.
This book is more than 100-years old. It's original copy write is 1913. It was moderately long by modern standards. My copy was 308-pages. This story and others from the series are in the public domain. Free copies are available on Project Gutenberg, where I got my copy.
The author, Sax Rohmer wrote fourteen (14) Fu-Manchu series books between 1912 to 1959. Interestingly, despite its heavy far-eastern content, the author had never left Britain before writing the first three (3) books of the series. This book was initially serialized for magazine publication in 1912 and published as a novel in 1913. The first three books of the series include the protagonists in this one.
I’ve taken an interest in reading fiction from the first half of the 20th Century to see how differently folks thought versus now. These 100-year old stories are historically more interesting than contemporary historical fiction taking place in that period. They’re much more authentic. In particular, most writers of historical fiction can’t get into character. At heart, they are 21st century men and women. Their characters end-up being modern folks in period clothing and affecting the speech of the historical period. In this book, the author and his audience actually live in the first half of 20th century Britain. The story isn’t providing a 20th century period edu-tainment to a 21st century audience. The story is providing 20th century edu-tainment to a 20th century audience. The resulting narration is different from a modern story, but not so completely different as to be unrecognizable.
One of the things I look for in these old stories is the Values Dissonance. That’s when the morality of the characters and culture in a story written more than 100-years ago are different from the current morality. Racist fears of foreign cultures and sexual anxieties weren’t really too different 100-years ago. For example, this story is an example of Yellow Peril literature. A then current psycho-cultural, belief of a racial menace from the East similar to contemporary white supremacist sentiments.
Besides the Value dissonance, I look to find spelling differences, word changes, name changes, and differences in writing styles in these old books.
In this story I noted the period British spelling of the common word “clue” to be “clew”. The modern spelling is now universal. Also words change their meanings. The word "oriental" was commonly used in the story. Today, its considered derogatory, and is no longer used even to describe a broad range of traditional carpet types. Locations 100-years ago were not uniformly Romanized . Frequently I found far-east locations referenced in the story had disappeared from the modern map due to name changes. Names of common objects also fall out of use. A “brassie” was used as a weapon in the story. Only after a chapter of use did I receive enough clews [sic] to figure out it was an obsolete type of golf club that has since been replaced by the 3-iron. Also, many readers may find the vocabulary of these stories antique and challenging. (“ Viridescence ” sent me to the dictionary.) I suspect part of the 20th Century edu-tainment value of these stories was a vocabulary lesson, something shunned in many modern stories. Finally, many of the then new and clever plot devices found here have over time have become tired tropes to a modern reader. Narrative style has also changed. The epistolary style is rarely used today, but was very popular 100 and more years ago.
Prose was very good. Dialog was better than descriptive prose. The dialog was in the vernacular of the British established middle and the Elite classes. In general, the dialog was too melodramatic by contemporary standards. For example, the description of the antagonist (Fu-Manchu):
This story was written for a popular audience in 1913. It’s been scrubbed of anything then British society might find objectionable. There are no profanities or vulgarities in the text. There is no sex. English gentleman apparently should regard “Oriental beauties” as forbidden fruit. There are oblique references to human trafficking. There was significant substance abuse. Alcohol was used in a medicinal capacity by the English gentlemen. The gentlemen smoked up a tobacco storm in their pipes and occasionally smoked cigarettes. However, the “eastern vices” of opium and hemp were in use by the underclasses and foreigners and to “rufie” the unwary.
That does not read like the effects of the Special Kush #1 found at my local marijuana dispensary.
Violence was not graphic. It consisted of edged-weapon, physical and firearms. The Asians used edged weapons, the whites firearms. There is a minimum of trauma and blood. The Asian and South Asian minions of Fu-Manchu got shot and fell over dead, without the modern complications of bleeding out. The body count was moderate. This could be considered a YA read, except for the racial and social subtext.
There is a limited number of characters. The influence of Arthur Conan Doyle is obvious upon the author. The protagonists are Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. They are clearly Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Smith is the law man protagonist. He’s Sherlock with a “license to kill” from the Crown. He’s not as deductive as Sherlock, but he’s really lucky. Dr. Petrie is Dr. Watson. (He's a "Medical Man" too.) If you know that character, you don’t need to know any more. Oddly, I don’t recall him having a first name. Karamaneh is an early example of a femme fatale. Her name means “slave”. She’s the beautiful Arab Egyptian slave of Fu-Manchu, and Petrie’s unconsummated love interest. Fu-Manchu apparently doesn’t use her sexually himself, but does employ her as a honeypot for western gentlemen. The antagonist is Dr. Fu-Manchu. He’s an evil, well-funded, Chinese, super villain, genius. (He's a PhD, not a "Medical Man".) Imagine a Chinese, Osama bin Laden times ten terrorist. He’s employed by a shadowy Chinese political organization. He’s always a step and a half ahead of Smith, Petrie and Scotland Yard. His signature is to kill or incapacitate his foes in the most elaborate way possible. However, like Smith, he’s a “man of honor”. There are also numerous English gentlemen and their wives, along with Indian, Burmese, and “copper” redshirts.
Women, with the exception of Karamaneh, do not play a large part in the story.
The story is written in a semi-epistolary form. This is a very common style of writing for the period. Narrative cuts back and forth between Petrie’s first-person narration, and his journal entries. Action scenes are in Petrie’s first-person POV, while the journal artifice being used for exposition-type narration, certain reveals and jumping the story ahead. The serialization of the story is also apparent in the chapter structure and the story's pacing.
Plot has Smith returning to Blighty from Burma hot on the trail of Fu-Manchu. Fu-Manchu is tasked by a shadowy Chinese political organization to assassinate key British Empire Chinese policy makers adverse to their goals. He’s also to steal valuable British technology and kidnap notable western engineers for work in China. (This all sounds very modern, doesn’t it?) Smith and Petrie chase around London, having several adventures either to capture Fu-Manchu or foil his assassinations, kidnaps and thefts. Part of the edu-tainment is Fu-Manchu’s very elaborate methods. Like the Russians using polonium-210, a poisonous radioactive isotope rather than shoot, knife or blow-up a victim, Fu-Manchu would use a venomous insect or snake, biological or chemical poison. It’s part of the edutainment value of the story to learn how to kill using the venom of a hamadryad (King Cobra, but not the malt liquor ). Smith and Petrie survive capture and death several times only by pure luck. By turning Karamenah, Smith and Petrie foil almost all of Fu-Machu’s machinations, but they fail to capture him. He escapes to appear in another book.
As a thriller, a modern reader has seen this story many times. There are numerous plot holes, discontinuities and many pages of needless exposition that adversely affect the pacing. I was constantly annoyed that when “good guys” were captured by the bad guys, they were never relieved of their pocket knives, which they subsequently used to cut their bonds and escape. Also, there were too many assassinations, kidnappings, thefts and well-laid plans to capture. It was getting boring by page 250.
The anthropological whiteness of the story is obvious. The bad guys were Asians or South Asians, and the good guys Anglo-Saxon. There was a lot of The White Man’s Burden in the text. (There were several Rudyard Kipling quotes in the story.) Petrie and Karamenah pined for each other, but East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet was quoted to fend off miscegenation. There are also no black characters. I got the feeling there were none in London in 1912?
This story was about what I expected. The prose, particularly the descriptions were interesting to read. I improved my vocabulary and learned a lot about the state of science and technology in the pre-WWI British Empire. I found Chinese theft of intellectual property to be a surprisingly modern plot device within the story. I did find the pacing to be slow, by modern standards. Unfortunately, in places I found the social commentary disturbing to my modern sensibilities. For example, at the stories end, Karamenah was repatriated back to Egypt. That was because it would not be proper for Petrie to have a relationship with an Arab women. (Realistically, her fate upon return to Egypt can't have been good.) In summary, this was an interesting read, if you have a historical interest in the late British Empire, but you may find it baffling and possibly offensive.
Readers interested in some background on this period of English history might try Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India and Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age . I’m undecided if I’ll read the second book in the Fu-Manchu series: The Devil Doctor .
This book is more than 100-years old. It's original copy write is 1913. It was moderately long by modern standards. My copy was 308-pages. This story and others from the series are in the public domain. Free copies are available on Project Gutenberg, where I got my copy.
The author, Sax Rohmer wrote fourteen (14) Fu-Manchu series books between 1912 to 1959. Interestingly, despite its heavy far-eastern content, the author had never left Britain before writing the first three (3) books of the series. This book was initially serialized for magazine publication in 1912 and published as a novel in 1913. The first three books of the series include the protagonists in this one.
I’ve taken an interest in reading fiction from the first half of the 20th Century to see how differently folks thought versus now. These 100-year old stories are historically more interesting than contemporary historical fiction taking place in that period. They’re much more authentic. In particular, most writers of historical fiction can’t get into character. At heart, they are 21st century men and women. Their characters end-up being modern folks in period clothing and affecting the speech of the historical period. In this book, the author and his audience actually live in the first half of 20th century Britain. The story isn’t providing a 20th century period edu-tainment to a 21st century audience. The story is providing 20th century edu-tainment to a 20th century audience. The resulting narration is different from a modern story, but not so completely different as to be unrecognizable.
One of the things I look for in these old stories is the Values Dissonance. That’s when the morality of the characters and culture in a story written more than 100-years ago are different from the current morality. Racist fears of foreign cultures and sexual anxieties weren’t really too different 100-years ago. For example, this story is an example of Yellow Peril literature. A then current psycho-cultural, belief of a racial menace from the East similar to contemporary white supremacist sentiments.
Besides the Value dissonance, I look to find spelling differences, word changes, name changes, and differences in writing styles in these old books.
In this story I noted the period British spelling of the common word “clue” to be “clew”. The modern spelling is now universal. Also words change their meanings. The word "oriental" was commonly used in the story. Today, its considered derogatory, and is no longer used even to describe a broad range of traditional carpet types. Locations 100-years ago were not uniformly Romanized . Frequently I found far-east locations referenced in the story had disappeared from the modern map due to name changes. Names of common objects also fall out of use. A “brassie” was used as a weapon in the story. Only after a chapter of use did I receive enough clews [sic] to figure out it was an obsolete type of golf club that has since been replaced by the 3-iron. Also, many readers may find the vocabulary of these stories antique and challenging. (“ Viridescence ” sent me to the dictionary.) I suspect part of the 20th Century edu-tainment value of these stories was a vocabulary lesson, something shunned in many modern stories. Finally, many of the then new and clever plot devices found here have over time have become tired tropes to a modern reader. Narrative style has also changed. The epistolary style is rarely used today, but was very popular 100 and more years ago.
Prose was very good. Dialog was better than descriptive prose. The dialog was in the vernacular of the British established middle and the Elite classes. In general, the dialog was too melodramatic by contemporary standards. For example, the description of the antagonist (Fu-Manchu):
” Dr. Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and left no clew behind.”
This story was written for a popular audience in 1913. It’s been scrubbed of anything then British society might find objectionable. There are no profanities or vulgarities in the text. There is no sex. English gentleman apparently should regard “Oriental beauties” as forbidden fruit. There are oblique references to human trafficking. There was significant substance abuse. Alcohol was used in a medicinal capacity by the English gentlemen. The gentlemen smoked up a tobacco storm in their pipes and occasionally smoked cigarettes. However, the “eastern vices” of opium and hemp were in use by the underclasses and foreigners and to “rufie” the unwary.
Cannabis indica," I said—"Indian hemp. That is what you were drugged with. I have no doubt that now you experience a feeling of nausea and intense thirst, with aching in the muscles, particularly the deltoid. I think you must have taken at least fifteen grains."
That does not read like the effects of the Special Kush #1 found at my local marijuana dispensary.
Violence was not graphic. It consisted of edged-weapon, physical and firearms. The Asians used edged weapons, the whites firearms. There is a minimum of trauma and blood. The Asian and South Asian minions of Fu-Manchu got shot and fell over dead, without the modern complications of bleeding out. The body count was moderate. This could be considered a YA read, except for the racial and social subtext.
There is a limited number of characters. The influence of Arthur Conan Doyle is obvious upon the author. The protagonists are Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. They are clearly Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Smith is the law man protagonist. He’s Sherlock with a “license to kill” from the Crown. He’s not as deductive as Sherlock, but he’s really lucky. Dr. Petrie is Dr. Watson. (He's a "Medical Man" too.) If you know that character, you don’t need to know any more. Oddly, I don’t recall him having a first name. Karamaneh is an early example of a femme fatale. Her name means “slave”. She’s the beautiful Arab Egyptian slave of Fu-Manchu, and Petrie’s unconsummated love interest. Fu-Manchu apparently doesn’t use her sexually himself, but does employ her as a honeypot for western gentlemen. The antagonist is Dr. Fu-Manchu. He’s an evil, well-funded, Chinese, super villain, genius. (He's a PhD, not a "Medical Man".) Imagine a Chinese, Osama bin Laden times ten terrorist. He’s employed by a shadowy Chinese political organization. He’s always a step and a half ahead of Smith, Petrie and Scotland Yard. His signature is to kill or incapacitate his foes in the most elaborate way possible. However, like Smith, he’s a “man of honor”. There are also numerous English gentlemen and their wives, along with Indian, Burmese, and “copper” redshirts.
Women, with the exception of Karamaneh, do not play a large part in the story.
The story is written in a semi-epistolary form. This is a very common style of writing for the period. Narrative cuts back and forth between Petrie’s first-person narration, and his journal entries. Action scenes are in Petrie’s first-person POV, while the journal artifice being used for exposition-type narration, certain reveals and jumping the story ahead. The serialization of the story is also apparent in the chapter structure and the story's pacing.
Plot has Smith returning to Blighty from Burma hot on the trail of Fu-Manchu. Fu-Manchu is tasked by a shadowy Chinese political organization to assassinate key British Empire Chinese policy makers adverse to their goals. He’s also to steal valuable British technology and kidnap notable western engineers for work in China. (This all sounds very modern, doesn’t it?) Smith and Petrie chase around London, having several adventures either to capture Fu-Manchu or foil his assassinations, kidnaps and thefts. Part of the edu-tainment is Fu-Manchu’s very elaborate methods. Like the Russians using polonium-210, a poisonous radioactive isotope rather than shoot, knife or blow-up a victim, Fu-Manchu would use a venomous insect or snake, biological or chemical poison. It’s part of the edutainment value of the story to learn how to kill using the venom of a hamadryad (King Cobra, but not the malt liquor ). Smith and Petrie survive capture and death several times only by pure luck. By turning Karamenah, Smith and Petrie foil almost all of Fu-Machu’s machinations, but they fail to capture him. He escapes to appear in another book.
As a thriller, a modern reader has seen this story many times. There are numerous plot holes, discontinuities and many pages of needless exposition that adversely affect the pacing. I was constantly annoyed that when “good guys” were captured by the bad guys, they were never relieved of their pocket knives, which they subsequently used to cut their bonds and escape. Also, there were too many assassinations, kidnappings, thefts and well-laid plans to capture. It was getting boring by page 250.
The anthropological whiteness of the story is obvious. The bad guys were Asians or South Asians, and the good guys Anglo-Saxon. There was a lot of The White Man’s Burden in the text. (There were several Rudyard Kipling quotes in the story.) Petrie and Karamenah pined for each other, but East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet was quoted to fend off miscegenation. There are also no black characters. I got the feeling there were none in London in 1912?
This story was about what I expected. The prose, particularly the descriptions were interesting to read. I improved my vocabulary and learned a lot about the state of science and technology in the pre-WWI British Empire. I found Chinese theft of intellectual property to be a surprisingly modern plot device within the story. I did find the pacing to be slow, by modern standards. Unfortunately, in places I found the social commentary disturbing to my modern sensibilities. For example, at the stories end, Karamenah was repatriated back to Egypt. That was because it would not be proper for Petrie to have a relationship with an Arab women. (Realistically, her fate upon return to Egypt can't have been good.) In summary, this was an interesting read, if you have a historical interest in the late British Empire, but you may find it baffling and possibly offensive.
Readers interested in some background on this period of English history might try Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India and Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age . I’m undecided if I’ll read the second book in the Fu-Manchu series: The Devil Doctor .
October 3, 2021
While reading classics there is always a chance of sexism, racist thinking and other problematic things. Often I can look past it by having in mind that it's a product of its time. But this one was to much, not sprinkled a little here and there as in most not being a huge plot point
March 22, 2011
I finished reading The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu last Friday on the way home from work. It’s the first book I read on my Nook; I downloaded it for free from Google.com. I think I first read the Fu Manchu series sometime in the mid-seventies (or at least first eight). Of course I bought them all, and the remaining six are sitting unread on a shelf (or in a box) someplace.
First, about the edition: According to the text in the book Google scanned a hard copy from some library, converted to text using OCR software, and then to eBook format. The OCR was pretty good, but there are still quite a few typos. Usually the meaning was pretty clear, but one particularly obnoxious recurring error was Pu-Manchu for Fu-Manchu. It appears over 10 times in the book; not a great number but very annoying as it disrupted my involvement in the story.
Well, about the story. This is the book that introduced Fu Manchu, one of the great villains of pulp fiction. The heroes of the story are Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. In the Sherlock Holmes tradition, the novel is narrated by the good doctor, and the main actor is Smith. Interestingly, Petrie occasionally speaks directly to the reader, telling us what we’re reading was written after the fact.
The novel begins with Smith’s arrival on Petrie’s doorstep recently arrived from Burma, on the trail (as we eventually learn) of Fu Manchu. As the novel continues Smith and Petrie encounter Fu Manchu’s insidious plots, sometimes in time to stop them and sometimes not. And we meet the beautiful Karamanèh, slave to Fu Manchu. What are her real motives? Is she trying to kill Smith or … ?
The plot is episodic, and in the pulp tradition has plenty of mini-cliffhangers with Petrie or Smith trapped with no way out. All in all this is a pretty decent pulp novel. There’s a reason Fu Manchu didn’t fade into obscurity.
But this book (and, if I recall correctly, its sequels) have one serious defect that lessens my enjoyment. The story isn’t just about Smith versus Fu Manchu and Fu Manchu’s attempt to rule the world; Smith states over and over again that Fu Manchu’s victory would mean “the victory of the yellow races over the white.” This isn’t the casual racism of Haggard or Burroughs against blacks in their African stories. The book uses, or perhaps furthers the “Yellow Peril” of the early 20th century to add to the excitement.
To my mind, the overt racism of the books isn’t necessary; the books would work just as well without it. So, a decent book, marred by it time. As long as I could ignore the racism, it was pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately the racism was hard to ignore. I doubt I’ll dig up the unread books…
First, about the edition: According to the text in the book Google scanned a hard copy from some library, converted to text using OCR software, and then to eBook format. The OCR was pretty good, but there are still quite a few typos. Usually the meaning was pretty clear, but one particularly obnoxious recurring error was Pu-Manchu for Fu-Manchu. It appears over 10 times in the book; not a great number but very annoying as it disrupted my involvement in the story.
Well, about the story. This is the book that introduced Fu Manchu, one of the great villains of pulp fiction. The heroes of the story are Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. In the Sherlock Holmes tradition, the novel is narrated by the good doctor, and the main actor is Smith. Interestingly, Petrie occasionally speaks directly to the reader, telling us what we’re reading was written after the fact.
The novel begins with Smith’s arrival on Petrie’s doorstep recently arrived from Burma, on the trail (as we eventually learn) of Fu Manchu. As the novel continues Smith and Petrie encounter Fu Manchu’s insidious plots, sometimes in time to stop them and sometimes not. And we meet the beautiful Karamanèh, slave to Fu Manchu. What are her real motives? Is she trying to kill Smith or … ?
The plot is episodic, and in the pulp tradition has plenty of mini-cliffhangers with Petrie or Smith trapped with no way out. All in all this is a pretty decent pulp novel. There’s a reason Fu Manchu didn’t fade into obscurity.
But this book (and, if I recall correctly, its sequels) have one serious defect that lessens my enjoyment. The story isn’t just about Smith versus Fu Manchu and Fu Manchu’s attempt to rule the world; Smith states over and over again that Fu Manchu’s victory would mean “the victory of the yellow races over the white.” This isn’t the casual racism of Haggard or Burroughs against blacks in their African stories. The book uses, or perhaps furthers the “Yellow Peril” of the early 20th century to add to the excitement.
To my mind, the overt racism of the books isn’t necessary; the books would work just as well without it. So, a decent book, marred by it time. As long as I could ignore the racism, it was pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately the racism was hard to ignore. I doubt I’ll dig up the unread books…
July 25, 2016
This is Sax Rohmer's first book featuring the nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu, evil genius and threat to the West. The book was originally published as a series of tales in various magazines in the early 1900's. In 1913, it was published in its current form. The story is fast paced and often somewhat hurky-jerky. It follows Dennis Smith and his friend, Dr. Petrie as the track Fu-Manchu around London trying to stop Fu-Manchu as he tries to kill or kidnap important British scientists and engineers or their papers in his efforts to use the information to make China a world ruler. Fu-Manchu uses all the means at his disposal, poisons, insects, Asian henchmen (Thuggies and Dacoits) in his plots and maybe even magic as he battles the two men and Scotland Yard. Smith and Petrie are often helped and saved by the beautiful Karamaneh, a slave of Fu-Manchu's, risking her life to thwart his efforts. It's an entertaining story, becoming subject to movies, comics, radio and TV shows and worth reading. (3 stars)
August 17, 2014
The review from afar – No. 9
Re-revised forward to these overseas reviews:
As I emulate a yo-yo, I continue to rely on an old-style Kindle 3G for any non-technical reading. I tip my hat to the fine folks at Project Gutenberg: virtually every title I have or will be reading in the near future comes from them.
The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (American title, in England, The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu) begins the most famous series created by the prolific Sax Rohmer (nee’ Arthur Henry Ward). Rohmer was a talented man who transitioned from writing comedy and songs for music hall entertainment to weird, occult fiction often with an Oriental twist. There are decent author profiles here in Goodreads and elsewhere.
Fu Manchu is decidedly un-politically correct, but more importantly he became an archetype for brilliant, evil, fiends bent on world domination. Yes, he is a product of his times and the stereotypes and biases of that age, but remember that Rohmer was writing popular fiction. If the magazine publishers who serialized these works did not see high sales numbers, Fu Manchu would have been a one-hit-wonder instead of an enduring series.
And despite the ease that one can denigrate the product, this is no simple slam against the Orient. Fu Manchu is brilliant. He is holds or has the equivalent of four (4) Doctorates in many fields: medicine, chemistry, physics, to name but a few. He is an accomplished linguist and can match Sherlock Holmes (who is not part of these tales) disguise for disguise. He works for his country (via the Si-Fan) not only personal power and gain. He follows instructions and believes as fervently as any holier-than-thou whack job that his is the hallowed path of goodness, no matter what crimes he must commit to achieve his objectives. If ever there was a shining example for all of the No. 1s of SPECTRE or SMERSH, or Auric Goldfinger, Doctor Moriarty, or even Doctor Evil, this is the man. His evil is so pure it overwhelms those who are pure of heart and mind.
And yet, like Conan Doyle before him, once the figure had outgrown his creator’s fame, Rohmer cast him aside. The first three novels came and went during 1913 through 1917 and there the series sat until 1931. Why? Well conjecture says that he decided that he wanted to write other things (and there may be written or oral evidence of this, too.) And so he did. (One might argue more successfully than Conan Doyle ever could.) But at the same time, the character had been filmed in England, a daily “comic” strip was about to start and Warner Oland was donning the mantle of evil for Paramount’s first film.
In this and the next two novels, the heroes are Colonial Police Commissioner (with a Royal Roving License) Denis Nayland Smith and his friend and associate (and narrator), Dr. Petrie. Petrie is the rock against which Nayland Smith operates providing lodging and assistance whenever and wherever it is needed. Nayland Smith is tenacious, and occasionally brilliant, and has uncovered Fu Manchu and his plans in Asia and tracked him back to England, where they must defeat him. His roving commission gives him the power to request or coerce any and all support that he feels warranted.
There is an obvious parallel to Holmes and Watson here even though Nayland Smith is not the deductive powerhouse that The World’s Greatest Consulting Detective is. (But neither is an idiot. Forget Nigel Bruce’s dim-witted, portrayal of Watson. Like the deerstalker cap, it isn’t really part of Conan Doyle’s writings. Watson is of course no Holmes and he loses at least one, maybe two wives, to an illness, but he’s a capable Doctor and Surgeon.) No mere mortal can seem smart when compared to the brilliance (even muted as it is here) of the leading man. But what they appear to lack in brains, these second bananas make up for it in emotion and directness (and romance as it turns out).
As his chief assistant, Fu Manchu wields the incomparably lovely and mysterious, Karamaneh (which means “slave”). She and her brother were sold to the Si-Fan (the criminal organization that the Doctor works for) years before. Her real name is hidden and she is compelled to follow Fu Machu’s orders because he has her brother drugged and captive. Karamaneh is smart, she is clever, and she is seductive; all traits that she employs in carrying out her assignments. Petrie is smitten by her at first glance.
Since these are among his best known works, I’m going to avoid any real summation of the plot or action. When they first appeared they were instantly popular and garnered fame and wealth for the author. As previously noted, Fu Manchu became the symbol of the evil Orient especially the threat of the “Yellow Peril” with wide enough recognition that later characters would be patterned after him: Ming the Merciless (Flash Gordon) instantly comes to mind.
At the same time, in the real world, Sun Yat Sen had finally led a successful overthrow of the Qing Dynasty (1911), the Japanese had defeated a European Power (Russia) on land and sea in 1905 (only 40 short years after the Meiji Restoration and industrialization of Japan), and the unequal treaties of the Western Powers with China were still in force. But as today, jingoism trumps reality and intrigue, blood, and stereotypes sell. Just check out the opposite side’s (which ever you prefer) most vocal Talking Heads or Talk Radio meat puppets. Can we truly say that we’ve gotten better except at superficial lip-service?
Since I have been reading a lot of older material, I accept that the styles, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors in their day reflect more their world than anything innate. That may be more or less true depending on the individual, but I am reading for enjoyment and diversion and I can tolerate a lot in pursuit of a good story. And, despite the rough edges (part of their appeal originally), these are good stories and Doctor Fu Manchu is a most wonderful adversary!
Three (3.0) Solid Stars for the actual writing, but Four (4.0) Stars awarded for creating one of the Baddest of the Bad Guys of All Time.
You can get this story for free from the Gutenberg Project site.
December 30, 2016
I came across an old copy of this in my library's stacks. I'm a sucker for old mysteries, and obviously knew of this one by reputation, but let's just say I was still unprepared for the horrific racism and sexism in this book. The plot is very exciting...as long as you are prepared to accept at face value that the fate of the White Race is on the line at the hands of the sinister Chinese, and to read a great deal of pretty outrageous accusations and characterizations along these lines. Should probably be kept out of the hands of the average Trump voter, who would be sadly likely to take the whole thing at face value.
November 29, 2010
I know that these are supposed to be terribly politically incorrect, and there is a fair bit of racial typing happening here, but Fu Manchu is a brilliant fictional creation. Rohmer's prose is vivid and his sense of pacing is excellent, as is his flair for the weird. There are moments of pure horror on display here, as well as sequences of action that left me feeling as winded as if I were actually there. That's good thriller writing, and Rohmer's novels deserve to be remembered for their continued ability to entertain.
November 11, 2014
My handful of regular followers will think I've gone quite mad. This is a bad, bad book...but there is more than one way to read a novel, and a certain difference between 'so bad paint drying supervisory duty is a more fulfilling experience' and 'so far beyond bad it's somehow crossed back around to Awesome again'.
As I read it, this is the story about a secret agent/mad scientist of slightly-above average intelligence and the two bungling detectives who try to foil him. Indeed, Agent Smith and Dr. Petrie are genre-blind to the point of being as dense as a compacted shit-and-brick sandwitch, and are frequently rescued by Slave, who would surely be the protagonist if not for being brown (but not too brown) and female.
As for Fu himself, I found it impossible not to picture him walking through the background of scenes with his bag of peanuts, monkey or murder victim as Smith & Petrie mutter "he's close...very close...the fiend!" He certainly does enough of his own legwork to make it clear there's really no huge shadowy organisation backing him up, and that his brief forays into Bond villain gloating and maniacal laughter are entirely down to being on smack (it's canon!). His insistence on vaguely-described traditional garb is as endearing as it is logically baffling: Fu seems to know he's the stereotype for Fiendish Heathen Chinese and is just rocking the hell out of it because he can. I dare anyone to read this and not want to be best friends with the guy/build an over-elaborate death trap with him and help train his murder snails (the man has attack mushrooms; I am sure he has murder snails in training somewhere).
The plot is awkwardly episodic and gloriously pulpy, but the terrible writing gains extra charm from its datedness, which adds a soft layer of unintentional homoeroticisim and ridiculousness to the mix. My version also expresses emphasis in capitals, which leads to, well, things like this:
...I will not believe you if you claim not to have heard a mental 'dun-dun DUN' after that dialogue. There's also this gem, when the Malevolent Mastermind of Manchuria is presumably threatening his chained and despairing captives with being forced to do his tax returns:
The fiend!
Unintentional hilarity aside, though, readers even semi-sensitive or unused to the irrational hatred white men brought up to consider themselves the only worthwhile kind of human being are capable of should consider deeply before trying this stuff. It is toxic, and even I found some points so bafflingly cruel as to be hard to laugh at (the idea that a stiff beating will satisfy that quaint Eastern honour and cause it to evaporate, for instance, and that a would-be stool pigeon desires this, or that an article about a brisk trade in scorpions for the purposes of infanticide had all credibility).
There's also a darkly interesting phenomenon to note in that Fu's Evil Asian buddies are all continental cultists and largely Indian, whilst today's Yellow Peril villains are generally an undifferenciated mash of Chinese-Japanese-Korean gangsters, presumably due to a shift in media towards the American skintone-based perception of race from the Victorian Imperial one of "us with Empires" and "all those coloured devils".
<>In short, this book is proof that there is a way to make white supremacists look even stupider: by pitting them against a moderately clever and relatively decent Chinese drug addict and letting them chew the scenery on the subject of how inhumanly wicked he is and how outwitted they are.
[Fu Manchu walks past in the background, obliviously sniffing a flower as he walks the murder centipedes]
As I read it, this is the story about a secret agent/mad scientist of slightly-above average intelligence and the two bungling detectives who try to foil him. Indeed, Agent Smith and Dr. Petrie are genre-blind to the point of being as dense as a compacted shit-and-brick sandwitch, and are frequently rescued by Slave, who would surely be the protagonist if not for being brown (but not too brown) and female.
As for Fu himself, I found it impossible not to picture him walking through the background of scenes with his bag of peanuts, monkey or murder victim as Smith & Petrie mutter "he's close...very close...the fiend!" He certainly does enough of his own legwork to make it clear there's really no huge shadowy organisation backing him up, and that his brief forays into Bond villain gloating and maniacal laughter are entirely down to being on smack (it's canon!). His insistence on vaguely-described traditional garb is as endearing as it is logically baffling: Fu seems to know he's the stereotype for Fiendish Heathen Chinese and is just rocking the hell out of it because he can. I dare anyone to read this and not want to be best friends with the guy/build an over-elaborate death trap with him and help train his murder snails (the man has attack mushrooms; I am sure he has murder snails in training somewhere).
The plot is awkwardly episodic and gloriously pulpy, but the terrible writing gains extra charm from its datedness, which adds a soft layer of unintentional homoeroticisim and ridiculousness to the mix. My version also expresses emphasis in capitals, which leads to, well, things like this:
"On the steps lay a dead Chinaman."
"A dead Chinaman!"
"A dead CHINAMAN."
...I will not believe you if you claim not to have heard a mental 'dun-dun DUN' after that dialogue. There's also this gem, when the Malevolent Mastermind of Manchuria is presumably threatening his chained and despairing captives with being forced to do his tax returns:
"Ah! Mr. Smith is so prudent! He is thinking that I have FILES!" He pronounced the word in a way that made me shudder.
The fiend!
Unintentional hilarity aside, though, readers even semi-sensitive or unused to the irrational hatred white men brought up to consider themselves the only worthwhile kind of human being are capable of should consider deeply before trying this stuff. It is toxic, and even I found some points so bafflingly cruel as to be hard to laugh at (the idea that a stiff beating will satisfy that quaint Eastern honour and cause it to evaporate, for instance, and that a would-be stool pigeon desires this, or that an article about a brisk trade in scorpions for the purposes of infanticide had all credibility).
There's also a darkly interesting phenomenon to note in that Fu's Evil Asian buddies are all continental cultists and largely Indian, whilst today's Yellow Peril villains are generally an undifferenciated mash of Chinese-Japanese-Korean gangsters, presumably due to a shift in media towards the American skintone-based perception of race from the Victorian Imperial one of "us with Empires" and "all those coloured devils".
<>In short, this book is proof that there is a way to make white supremacists look even stupider: by pitting them against a moderately clever and relatively decent Chinese drug addict and letting them chew the scenery on the subject of how inhumanly wicked he is and how outwitted they are.
[Fu Manchu walks past in the background, obliviously sniffing a flower as he walks the murder centipedes]
March 3, 2012
Sax Rohmer has been called “the true king of the pulp mystery” (James Rollins) and in my personal view, Rohmer is pulp’s crowning achievement (and achiever). As a child in the 1950’s and 60’s, I loved his Fu-Manchu mysteries, and I love them still on rereading after many decades. They seem fresh and new, and still gloriously written, plotted, and characterized. Titan Books has done the literate world the enormous favour of reprinting Rohmer’s series, with two currently available and many more to come soon.
Rohmer’s protagonist/hero, Denis Nayland Smith (how I’ve always loved that name-so turn-of-the-20th century Edwardian British!) refers to his current case as “sheer uncanny mystery” and indeed, that terminology encapsulates the series. What Sax Rohmer brings to the reader is nothing short of unstoppable pacing, intrigue wrenched to the most taut degree of tension, endearing characters (yes, even the antagonist), and mystery layered upon mystery. Set in an era when Great Britain’s empire never saw the setting of the sun, when any ethnicity other than Western European-and possibly American-was considered less than third-class, not worthy of citizenship or even consideration, treated not much preferable to slavery, the Fu Manchu series are historical revelations. Indeed, in the eyes of certain classes of Englishmen at this time, “the white race,” as Nayland Smith terms it, is only of import. So Nayland Smith is very much a product of his time, yet he is literate, classy, good-looking, morally upright, and extraordinarily dedicated to his work-pursuing and capturing the infamous and ubiquitous Dr. Fu Manchu (who just happens to not be a member of “the white race,” after all). Yet Smith does not ever sell himself short on the capabilities or capacity for evil of Fu Manchu.
In “The Mystery of Fu Manchu,” Nayland Smith sets forth on a globe-trotting tour to track down Fu Manchu, who had left Smith for dead in the jungles of Burma, suffering from an arrow tipped in hamadryad venom. But Smith, who like Fu Manchu himself, if not immortal, does seem to possess nine or eighteen lives, has recovered and returns to London to enlist the aid of his faithful protégé and amanuensis, the illustrious Dr. Petrie (who plays second fiddle much like Dr. Watson did to Sherlock Holmes). Granted, this story occurs in 1913, but rare is the reader who will not be immediately caught up in the pace and flipping pages heart in mouth, anxious for the very survival of civilization, if Denis Nayland Smith cannot halt the progress of Dr. Fu Manchu.
Rohmer’s protagonist/hero, Denis Nayland Smith (how I’ve always loved that name-so turn-of-the-20th century Edwardian British!) refers to his current case as “sheer uncanny mystery” and indeed, that terminology encapsulates the series. What Sax Rohmer brings to the reader is nothing short of unstoppable pacing, intrigue wrenched to the most taut degree of tension, endearing characters (yes, even the antagonist), and mystery layered upon mystery. Set in an era when Great Britain’s empire never saw the setting of the sun, when any ethnicity other than Western European-and possibly American-was considered less than third-class, not worthy of citizenship or even consideration, treated not much preferable to slavery, the Fu Manchu series are historical revelations. Indeed, in the eyes of certain classes of Englishmen at this time, “the white race,” as Nayland Smith terms it, is only of import. So Nayland Smith is very much a product of his time, yet he is literate, classy, good-looking, morally upright, and extraordinarily dedicated to his work-pursuing and capturing the infamous and ubiquitous Dr. Fu Manchu (who just happens to not be a member of “the white race,” after all). Yet Smith does not ever sell himself short on the capabilities or capacity for evil of Fu Manchu.
In “The Mystery of Fu Manchu,” Nayland Smith sets forth on a globe-trotting tour to track down Fu Manchu, who had left Smith for dead in the jungles of Burma, suffering from an arrow tipped in hamadryad venom. But Smith, who like Fu Manchu himself, if not immortal, does seem to possess nine or eighteen lives, has recovered and returns to London to enlist the aid of his faithful protégé and amanuensis, the illustrious Dr. Petrie (who plays second fiddle much like Dr. Watson did to Sherlock Holmes). Granted, this story occurs in 1913, but rare is the reader who will not be immediately caught up in the pace and flipping pages heart in mouth, anxious for the very survival of civilization, if Denis Nayland Smith cannot halt the progress of Dr. Fu Manchu.
July 8, 2020
The shadow of Fu Manchu -- powered by the author's deranged racism -- is so powerful it overwhelms the reality of the novel. A wyrd cartoon character bleeding into tedious reality. He can be fun, even if it should be remembered that even unintentionally hilarious racism is still dangerous and must be extinguished. The most revealing insight to be gleaned from this tosh is how the "white race" and "western civilization" are presented as the same thing. It is important to keep this in mind when listening to real racists speak today. Things haven't changed as much as we'd prefer.
As for this trashy mess? Fu Manchu is so ridiculously over the top, silly, bizarre and hammy a creation it's hard for me not to at least slightly enjoy him. The two heroes here are wet rubbish Holmes and Watson knock-offs rightly forgotten by pop culture. In Fu Manchu himself the trashy Sax Rohmer created a legendary rock star pulp creation out of his own insane racial hysteria. Eventually this type of fiction would realise its ridiculousness and drop the racism angle -- see Vincent Price's Dr. Phibes or countless Saturday morning cartoon villains.
Oftentimes I'm able to look past the racism to enjoy a classic story. Here the racism is the story. While (still incredibly racist) adaptations sanitise the material and tend to make Fu Manchu an independent supervillain, here he is a literal embodiment of the inherent evil of the Chinese out to destroy the "white race". Despite this, he's the most likeable character in the damn book, and Rohmer's insane depiction of the "horrors" of China -- peaking in wyrd aspect with a delirious nightmare dungeon of monstrous fungus -- overwhelmingly appeal over the bland arid "white civilization" we're supposed to be rooting for. The looming shadow of Fu Manchu is the only prospect of anything of interest happening in the world Rohmer creates. An escape and salvation rather than a figure of cultural oblivion.
As for this trashy mess? Fu Manchu is so ridiculously over the top, silly, bizarre and hammy a creation it's hard for me not to at least slightly enjoy him. The two heroes here are wet rubbish Holmes and Watson knock-offs rightly forgotten by pop culture. In Fu Manchu himself the trashy Sax Rohmer created a legendary rock star pulp creation out of his own insane racial hysteria. Eventually this type of fiction would realise its ridiculousness and drop the racism angle -- see Vincent Price's Dr. Phibes or countless Saturday morning cartoon villains.
Oftentimes I'm able to look past the racism to enjoy a classic story. Here the racism is the story. While (still incredibly racist) adaptations sanitise the material and tend to make Fu Manchu an independent supervillain, here he is a literal embodiment of the inherent evil of the Chinese out to destroy the "white race". Despite this, he's the most likeable character in the damn book, and Rohmer's insane depiction of the "horrors" of China -- peaking in wyrd aspect with a delirious nightmare dungeon of monstrous fungus -- overwhelmingly appeal over the bland arid "white civilization" we're supposed to be rooting for. The looming shadow of Fu Manchu is the only prospect of anything of interest happening in the world Rohmer creates. An escape and salvation rather than a figure of cultural oblivion.
September 2, 2015
For better or worse, this provocative relic has become one of my favorite books. Rohmer invested his writing with an irresistible pulpy energy which borrows some of the superficial trappings of Doyle's Holmes and improves upon them. Anybody looking for fact or cultural accuracy shouldn't be reading this because it's in fact a grand fantasy, a work of high imagination. This book's loaded with opium dens, clever executions, disguises, chases, and even finds time for a romance.
I can't resist this particular leg of the adventure/mystery genre, the one where the real protagonist is the villain. Dr. Fu Manchu is one of the first true super-villains and hails from an age before boring superheroes were there to contend with them. Ordinary heroes really have to rise to the occasion when dealing with the superior intellect of a devil doctor with unlimited access to science and "the unknown mysteries of the east" to aid him in world conquest.
Technically out protagonists are the very British Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie (who fill Holmes and Watson roles, including Dr. Petrie being the narrator), but clearly our star is the extraordinary Dr. Fu Manchu. The devil doctor became a household word and essentially inspired every armchair villain since him.
I know a century later some people find this sort of thing boring, but I was raised on the James Bond series and always enjoyed a Blofeld or a Dr. No. This is the germ of the 20th century phase of lurid genre adventure, and I think it's still worth the read.
I can't resist this particular leg of the adventure/mystery genre, the one where the real protagonist is the villain. Dr. Fu Manchu is one of the first true super-villains and hails from an age before boring superheroes were there to contend with them. Ordinary heroes really have to rise to the occasion when dealing with the superior intellect of a devil doctor with unlimited access to science and "the unknown mysteries of the east" to aid him in world conquest.
Technically out protagonists are the very British Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie (who fill Holmes and Watson roles, including Dr. Petrie being the narrator), but clearly our star is the extraordinary Dr. Fu Manchu. The devil doctor became a household word and essentially inspired every armchair villain since him.
I know a century later some people find this sort of thing boring, but I was raised on the James Bond series and always enjoyed a Blofeld or a Dr. No. This is the germ of the 20th century phase of lurid genre adventure, and I think it's still worth the read.
May 13, 2019
Listening to B.J. Harrison's reading of it for the second time ... which is fantastic. Yes it's old and it's got some non-P.C. talk in it (because it was written in 1913) but it is a gosh-darned good adventure. Truly, Dr. Fu Manchu is a menace to all that is good, in epic proportions that astounded me with their imagination.
I thought it was interesting that author Sax Rohmer responded to charges that his work demonised Asians thusly:
I thought it was interesting that author Sax Rohmer responded to charges that his work demonised Asians thusly:
Of course, not the whole Chinese population of Limehouse was criminal. But it contained a large number of persons who had left their own country for the most urgent of reasons. These people knew no way of making a living other than the criminal activities that had made China too hot for them. They brought their crimes with them.I'd say there's still a certain amount of dated language for any Asian that their paths cross, but it's a fair point.
March 6, 2014
First published in 1913, read by me over 100 years later in 2014. Yes, there are overwhelming amounts of Orientalism and obnoxious English stereotyping. For example, Dr. Fu Manchu is always the face of the "yellow threat." So the novel displays the xenophobia of the age. However, it does present a mysterious, exotic villain. The main characters are constantly failing on this adventurous chase to arrest Dr. Fu Manchu, but they do hustle the reader along in non-stop exploits of hasty detective work. If you are interested in pulp novels, early adventure stories, exotic villains - this is the novel for you.
May 19, 2025
Cheesy, no character development, lacking in prose, and incapable of withstanding any sort of criticism or scrutiny; but somehow still fun and highly readable. While I don't plan to continue the series, I can see how this might be considered a classic of pulp fiction and has spawned countless movies and adaptations.
Glad to have experienced this "classic" of pulp, but didn't love it enough to read the rest of the books.
3⭐
Glad to have experienced this "classic" of pulp, but didn't love it enough to read the rest of the books.
3⭐
July 30, 2015
"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
You've got to admit, that's a pretty striking portrayal. Slightly racist, strongly xenophobic, but striking none the less.
Fu Manchu's first outing has him bumping off prominent architects of the British Empire in London and the surrounding counties, paving the way for the rise of the East. He certainly has some inventive methods of assassination, involving stealthy dacoits (agents), deadly animals, poisonous gases; mysterious methods known by exotic names, such as the Call of Siva and the Zayat Kiss.
Like all such theatrical criminal geniuses, Fu-Manchu loves to boast to his prisoners, and has a curiously poor track record of holding onto them. He also has a detective on his trail, Nayland Smith, who has followed him to London from Burma.
Alas, Smith is no Sherlock Holmes, despite being obviously inspired by him, alongside his courageous assistant and chronicler, Dr. Petrie, a Watson clone. Smith's dogged, I'll give him that, but he does very little actual detecting, merely chasing, and always a step behind at that.
What's more, he's clearly a racist. Sure, Fu Manchu is hardly a winning diplomat for East-West relations, but that doesn't mean everyone in China is quite so nefarious. They are to Smith though: 'No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty of the Chinese'.
He fancies himself a real expert on Eastern women too. After a slave of Dr. Fu Manchu's, the beautiful Kamanareh, becomes besotted with Petrie, Smith has this advice for him:
'You don't know the Oriental mind as I do; but I quite understand the girl's position ... If you would only seize her by the hair, drag her to some cellar, hurl her down and stand over her with a whip, she would tell you everything she knows'.
Fortunately for Kamanareh, Petrie demurs.
Having read the second book in the series a couple of years ago, I thought I was unlikely to bother reading any of the others, not being particularly impressed with its hammy dialogue, non-existent plot and the casual racism that underlines the whole idea of Fu Manchu.
So I surprised myself a little by bothering to read this, the book that launched the series. Surprising also was the fact that I enjoyed it a little more too. The same faults remained, but the racism was less pronounced, the dialogue never really got in the way and the plot - though still merely a string of sensationalised incidents - certainly had a propulsive quality that never lets up from start to finish.
And yet, there wasn't a single mention of his moustaches.
You've got to admit, that's a pretty striking portrayal. Slightly racist, strongly xenophobic, but striking none the less.
Fu Manchu's first outing has him bumping off prominent architects of the British Empire in London and the surrounding counties, paving the way for the rise of the East. He certainly has some inventive methods of assassination, involving stealthy dacoits (agents), deadly animals, poisonous gases; mysterious methods known by exotic names, such as the Call of Siva and the Zayat Kiss.
Like all such theatrical criminal geniuses, Fu-Manchu loves to boast to his prisoners, and has a curiously poor track record of holding onto them. He also has a detective on his trail, Nayland Smith, who has followed him to London from Burma.
Alas, Smith is no Sherlock Holmes, despite being obviously inspired by him, alongside his courageous assistant and chronicler, Dr. Petrie, a Watson clone. Smith's dogged, I'll give him that, but he does very little actual detecting, merely chasing, and always a step behind at that.
What's more, he's clearly a racist. Sure, Fu Manchu is hardly a winning diplomat for East-West relations, but that doesn't mean everyone in China is quite so nefarious. They are to Smith though: 'No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty of the Chinese'.
He fancies himself a real expert on Eastern women too. After a slave of Dr. Fu Manchu's, the beautiful Kamanareh, becomes besotted with Petrie, Smith has this advice for him:
'You don't know the Oriental mind as I do; but I quite understand the girl's position ... If you would only seize her by the hair, drag her to some cellar, hurl her down and stand over her with a whip, she would tell you everything she knows'.
Fortunately for Kamanareh, Petrie demurs.
Having read the second book in the series a couple of years ago, I thought I was unlikely to bother reading any of the others, not being particularly impressed with its hammy dialogue, non-existent plot and the casual racism that underlines the whole idea of Fu Manchu.
So I surprised myself a little by bothering to read this, the book that launched the series. Surprising also was the fact that I enjoyed it a little more too. The same faults remained, but the racism was less pronounced, the dialogue never really got in the way and the plot - though still merely a string of sensationalised incidents - certainly had a propulsive quality that never lets up from start to finish.
And yet, there wasn't a single mention of his moustaches.
January 30, 2024
I am rounding up to three stars in my rating of this book. Yes, it's racist. So over the top racist that no thinking person, whatever their ethnic background, could possibly take it seriously, or become offended unless they're really wanting to be. If that's you, you'll find lots of fodder for you to be righteously indignant over here.
Otherwise, this story, the characters, the situations, are remarkably pedestrian. It's easy to see what Rohmer has done here, which is to have stolen everything he is writing about directly from Arthur Conan Doyle:
Sir Nayland Smith = Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Petrie = Dr. Watson
Inspector Weymouth = Inspector Lestrade
Dr. Fu Manchu = Prof. Moriarty
If you're going to steal, steal from the best I say. And that formula was clearly successful for Rohmer. Except, the result is not equal because Rohmer is not the equal writer, neither in terms of imagination or skill. Thus, we have a highly watered down version in Rohmer's.
Smith is not as brilliant, observant, deductive, or interesting as Holmes. Petrie is not quite as incapable as Watson or as good a foil. Weymouth is reasonably competent here and is actually friends with Smith although he needs Smith as much as Lestrade seems to need Holmes in order to accomplish anything. Finally, Fu Manchu, the villain, is every bit as evil as Moriarty, and also keeps a code of honor of sorts, but unlike having Moriarty's brilliance, seems to rely on possibly mystical Oriental powers more. This is not a difference that makes Fu Manchu more interesting, just more obscure.
I wanted to like this story and its characters more. I even did Rohmer the favor of ignoring the racism. But what's left after that isn't all that interesting, just weird and barely passable in terms of plot. Stick with Doyle instead.
Otherwise, this story, the characters, the situations, are remarkably pedestrian. It's easy to see what Rohmer has done here, which is to have stolen everything he is writing about directly from Arthur Conan Doyle:
Sir Nayland Smith = Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Petrie = Dr. Watson
Inspector Weymouth = Inspector Lestrade
Dr. Fu Manchu = Prof. Moriarty
If you're going to steal, steal from the best I say. And that formula was clearly successful for Rohmer. Except, the result is not equal because Rohmer is not the equal writer, neither in terms of imagination or skill. Thus, we have a highly watered down version in Rohmer's.
Smith is not as brilliant, observant, deductive, or interesting as Holmes. Petrie is not quite as incapable as Watson or as good a foil. Weymouth is reasonably competent here and is actually friends with Smith although he needs Smith as much as Lestrade seems to need Holmes in order to accomplish anything. Finally, Fu Manchu, the villain, is every bit as evil as Moriarty, and also keeps a code of honor of sorts, but unlike having Moriarty's brilliance, seems to rely on possibly mystical Oriental powers more. This is not a difference that makes Fu Manchu more interesting, just more obscure.
I wanted to like this story and its characters more. I even did Rohmer the favor of ignoring the racism. But what's left after that isn't all that interesting, just weird and barely passable in terms of plot. Stick with Doyle instead.
June 4, 2012
I thoroughly enjoy reading older novels like this. They are not only entertaining, but I consider them to be fascinating records of their time. You really get to see how things have changed over time, not only with how words are spoken, but what more insensitive words and phrases were used as appropriate back then. This is especially true in a book like this, written and set in London in 1913 and deals with a villain from a foreign land like China. Words like "Chinaman," "Oriental" and "Yellow Menace" permeate the book. There was even one passage where an Asian character's dialogue had all of the L's changed to R's. Beyond these amusing little peeks into another time, the story itself is fun pulp adventure, with our narrator, Dr. Petrie, and government agent Dennis Nayland Smith chase all over England with the hope of stopping the evil Dr. Fu-Manchu's nefarious plots. Shades of the admittedly superior Holmes stories (written around the same time) are evident, as is the fact that the book is really a collection of several adventures previously serialized in magazines. These facts don't diminish the book at all. You can also see the influence the character of Fu-Manchu had on many other iconic villains created during the 20th Century, such as Ming the Merciless and Dr. Zin from "Jonny Quest." I am definitely going to check out the other books in the series.
August 23, 2011
It's amazing how much action Sax Rohmer crams into this short, 192-page book. In it, Commissioner Nayland Smith and his cohort, Dr. Petrie, travel around London trying to rescue various chaps from murder, kidnapping, memory loss and assorted attacks perpetrated by the evil Chinese mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu. The pace of the book is quite breathless, and before all is said and done, we have dealt with poisonous centipedes, opium dens, trapdoors, memory drugs, mummies, poison gas, thugees and dacoits, ship raids, hashish, zombies, poison mushrooms, swamp adder drugs and on and on. Like I said, Rohmer throws a lot into this one, all for the pleasure of the adventure-loving reader. Who cares if it's not PC? This is a ripper of a yarn, as they used to say, and a nice intro to the other 13 books in the Fu Manchu series.
November 2, 2015
San Rohmer early Fu Manchu short stories were originally published in magazines before being put together as this novel in 1913. They are still quite fast paced for their age although there is aurprisingly little of the main villain himself in these stories.
April 8, 2022
For the past few years I have been rereading classic adventure stories, both true classics like Alexandre Dumas and more recent “classics” like The Destroyer and The Executioner. This time I am turning my attention to Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series.
Right off the top it’s important to recognize that this is a truly difficult book for the modern reader. It was written just before World War I at the end of the British Empire—an Empire that embraced the philosophy in Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden”. Its protagonists, in fact, are unapologetically racist in their attitude with Smith in the first chapter stating that he is trying to save the white race and with Fu Manchu (the villain of the series) commanding a criminal enterprise that apparently includes (through threat and intimidation) every Asian on the planet. These attitudes are terribly jarring as they continually pop up throughout the novel and it’s difficult to keep oneself in the frame of mind of the early twentieth century English man who narrates the tale—a man who is encountering the “exotic” criminal strategies of Fu Manchu for the first time in England.
The protagonists are Smith (from the Foreign Office) and Petrie (a physician). They seem to have been loosely modeled on Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Petrie bungles around always in the thick of things but is totally ignorant of his foe and totally overwhelmed with admiration for Smith. Smith, for his part, fully recognizes the danger presented by Fu Manchu’s schemes, but doesn’t actually do much beside run from place to place throwing himself into the problems without any apparent plan. His success is more dumb luck than careful strategy (so the Sherlock Holmes comparison is obviously weak)>
The actual adventure story is only all right. There are death traps (some of which were very serious) for our heroes to escape. And there’s a lot of worrying and running about, always a step behind Fu Manchu. There’s a love interest introduced for Petrie who serves mostly to get Petrie and Smith out of their problems. But overall, plot isn’t a strong point in the story (although it’s easy to see how the many deathtraps attracted the attention of the many film makers who have tackled this series).
Why then are people still reading this book more than a hundred years later? The answer is simple—Dr. Fu Manchu is a wonderful villain. To continue the Sherlock Holmes parallel, he’s Moriarty, but one with more intelligence, greater reach, and frankly, more ruthlessness than the Sherlock Holmes foe. He is a fantastic bad guy, worthy of superhero comics. He’s always several steps ahead of Smith and Petrie and frankly, it’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than that he allows them to survive the book because they are somehow furthering his plans. He also has a strong sense of honor that is the only limit on his success. For example, he seems completely committed to telling the truth. His disdain for modern weapons like guns also adds an exotic element to his character. Remove Fu Manchu and this would be a very dull tale.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
Right off the top it’s important to recognize that this is a truly difficult book for the modern reader. It was written just before World War I at the end of the British Empire—an Empire that embraced the philosophy in Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden”. Its protagonists, in fact, are unapologetically racist in their attitude with Smith in the first chapter stating that he is trying to save the white race and with Fu Manchu (the villain of the series) commanding a criminal enterprise that apparently includes (through threat and intimidation) every Asian on the planet. These attitudes are terribly jarring as they continually pop up throughout the novel and it’s difficult to keep oneself in the frame of mind of the early twentieth century English man who narrates the tale—a man who is encountering the “exotic” criminal strategies of Fu Manchu for the first time in England.
The protagonists are Smith (from the Foreign Office) and Petrie (a physician). They seem to have been loosely modeled on Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Petrie bungles around always in the thick of things but is totally ignorant of his foe and totally overwhelmed with admiration for Smith. Smith, for his part, fully recognizes the danger presented by Fu Manchu’s schemes, but doesn’t actually do much beside run from place to place throwing himself into the problems without any apparent plan. His success is more dumb luck than careful strategy (so the Sherlock Holmes comparison is obviously weak)>
The actual adventure story is only all right. There are death traps (some of which were very serious) for our heroes to escape. And there’s a lot of worrying and running about, always a step behind Fu Manchu. There’s a love interest introduced for Petrie who serves mostly to get Petrie and Smith out of their problems. But overall, plot isn’t a strong point in the story (although it’s easy to see how the many deathtraps attracted the attention of the many film makers who have tackled this series).
Why then are people still reading this book more than a hundred years later? The answer is simple—Dr. Fu Manchu is a wonderful villain. To continue the Sherlock Holmes parallel, he’s Moriarty, but one with more intelligence, greater reach, and frankly, more ruthlessness than the Sherlock Holmes foe. He is a fantastic bad guy, worthy of superhero comics. He’s always several steps ahead of Smith and Petrie and frankly, it’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than that he allows them to survive the book because they are somehow furthering his plans. He also has a strong sense of honor that is the only limit on his success. For example, he seems completely committed to telling the truth. His disdain for modern weapons like guns also adds an exotic element to his character. Remove Fu Manchu and this would be a very dull tale.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
May 20, 2023
Entertaining mystery listening 🎶🔰
Another will written British 🏰 murder mystery family and friends relationships adventure thriller short story by Sax Rohmer. This started strong 💪 but then became a pulp fiction slow 🐌 and boring. Give it a try it may work for you. 2023 😀👒☺
Another will written British 🏰 murder mystery family and friends relationships adventure thriller short story by Sax Rohmer. This started strong 💪 but then became a pulp fiction slow 🐌 and boring. Give it a try it may work for you. 2023 😀👒☺
June 29, 2025
The countless casual references to the “Yellow Peril” were gross, but the weird death scenes were interesting, I guess.
June 13, 2012
I just had me a nice little dose of déjà vu. Earlier this year I read Sax Rohmer's The Golden Scorpion. And now I have finished The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu. And it was like reading the same pulpy, cliff-hanger, Yellow Peril story all over again. Evil, all-powerful, Chinese master criminal bent on world conquest with ominous green eyes? Check. Leaving behind a trail of murdered experts in their field? Check. Beautiful, mysterious, woman who is strangely enslaved to the evil master criminal, but who has fondness for our gallant narrator and who alternately helps him and does her master's bidding? Check. Edge-of-your-seat endings to each chapter as the heroes narrowly escape from danger, just miss saving someone from the villain's clutches, or occasionally snatch a victim from Fu-Manchu's grasp? Check. Throw in a huge supply of weird, dangerous creatures to spice things up a bit--and we're all set.
This time our evil villain, Dr. Fu-Manchu, is determined to get his hands on all the experts on the Far East that he can--and eliminate them. He's also picking up a few doctors and scientists along the way and sending them back to China where they will be forced to aid him in his quest for world domination. Nayland Smith, who has mysterious connections with Scotland Yard, is out to stop the doctor no matter what the cost. Smith enlists the help of his friend Dr. Petrie--and the two of them set out to warn and rescue as many people on the doctor's hit list as they can. With mixed results. The final showdown occurs in a cottage and ends in flames. But is it the end of the Doctor?
Once again, this story is not for those who want a nice sanitized view of the early 20th Century. Rohmer uses the period's conventional mistrust of the Far East and the Asian culture to create his super villains--members of the Yellow Peril, a group bent on dominating the world and, particularly, conquering Britain and America. It's good old fashioned fun--especially for those of us who are familiar with the cliff-hanger serial stories of yesteryear. Lots of hyperbole and exaggeration (I've given a few examples below)--either about Fu-Manchu or in his dialogue.
If you're looking for fast-moving, pulpy fun, then Rohmer is your man. Another fun romp through one thrilling adventure after another. A good solid three stars.
This is also my final read for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge. And I would have to say that of all the characters included in that graphic novel, Fu-Manchu was the most faithfully rendered. Maybe it's easier to get it right when you're already dealing with an over-the-top villain. I don't know. But Moore did a great job capturing Fu-Manchu's "I'm going to rule the world!!!!" madness. Don't remember straight off whether he got the Doctor's eyes piercingly green enough or not. But well done on Fu-Manchu over all.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting any portion. Thanks.
This time our evil villain, Dr. Fu-Manchu, is determined to get his hands on all the experts on the Far East that he can--and eliminate them. He's also picking up a few doctors and scientists along the way and sending them back to China where they will be forced to aid him in his quest for world domination. Nayland Smith, who has mysterious connections with Scotland Yard, is out to stop the doctor no matter what the cost. Smith enlists the help of his friend Dr. Petrie--and the two of them set out to warn and rescue as many people on the doctor's hit list as they can. With mixed results. The final showdown occurs in a cottage and ends in flames. But is it the end of the Doctor?
Once again, this story is not for those who want a nice sanitized view of the early 20th Century. Rohmer uses the period's conventional mistrust of the Far East and the Asian culture to create his super villains--members of the Yellow Peril, a group bent on dominating the world and, particularly, conquering Britain and America. It's good old fashioned fun--especially for those of us who are familiar with the cliff-hanger serial stories of yesteryear. Lots of hyperbole and exaggeration (I've given a few examples below)--either about Fu-Manchu or in his dialogue.
If you're looking for fast-moving, pulpy fun, then Rohmer is your man. Another fun romp through one thrilling adventure after another. A good solid three stars.
This is also my final read for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge. And I would have to say that of all the characters included in that graphic novel, Fu-Manchu was the most faithfully rendered. Maybe it's easier to get it right when you're already dealing with an over-the-top villain. I don't know. But Moore did a great job capturing Fu-Manchu's "I'm going to rule the world!!!!" madness. Don't remember straight off whether he got the Doctor's eyes piercingly green enough or not. But well done on Fu-Manchu over all.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting any portion. Thanks.
July 11, 2016
The two British protagonists of this book are extreme racists. Speaking through the mouths of these two, the author employs almost every possible racial slur against the Chinese. Anything remotely related to China or Asia are right away branded as evil and objects of suspicion.
That’s the most in-your-face fact about the story of Dr. Fu Manchu. Any thought about this book from me could not proceed unless I had put these into words out here. Sax Rohmer’s story is a celebration of villainy with the introduction of a worthy villain. Two British gentlemen – Nayland Smith and Dr.Petrie are hot on the heels of an evil genius – Dr. Fu Manchu who like a dreaded virus is extending his reach farther and farther into England. There is a hit list that the Doctor has prepared for a few men in England all of which he systematically eliminates over the days. The British try their best to thwart his plans but Fu Manchu is like the Lernaean Hydra : the more heads you chop off, the more grow up in their place. A pedestrian analogy I can draw would be Brain from Pinky & the Brain with the only difference that Fu Manchu’s plans almost always succeed. Ever pondering his next evil machination Fu Manchu takes Smith and Petrie for a merry ride across England.
Let’s face it, Sax Rohmer might have been ‘inspired’ by that other gentleman in 221B but I would say it borders more on plagiarism than simple inspiration. There are more than one resemblances to a shrewd and unsentimental investigator and his side kick who is a doctor in this story. Where Rohmer succeeds in rescuing his creation is by making his evil genius stand taller than his sleuths. The evil doctor is in London aided by secret Chinese councils and looking for Chinese takeover of the British empire. He has an army at his beck and call complete with thugs, femme fatales, a lush supply of Opium and monstrous sidekicks straight out of laboratories. This being the first story the evil doctor is hell bent on killing everyone who stands in his way but his methods are what makes him such a magnificent antagonist. It is not every day that you come against a villain with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan and live to tell the tale.
As pulp fiction this is one of the best I have read for it has all the ingredients : guns, action, women, scheming villains and so on. The racism is rather inexcusable and I cannot really recommend this book. But being an insatiable sucker for good stories, I will follow Fu Manchu for some more time.
That’s the most in-your-face fact about the story of Dr. Fu Manchu. Any thought about this book from me could not proceed unless I had put these into words out here. Sax Rohmer’s story is a celebration of villainy with the introduction of a worthy villain. Two British gentlemen – Nayland Smith and Dr.Petrie are hot on the heels of an evil genius – Dr. Fu Manchu who like a dreaded virus is extending his reach farther and farther into England. There is a hit list that the Doctor has prepared for a few men in England all of which he systematically eliminates over the days. The British try their best to thwart his plans but Fu Manchu is like the Lernaean Hydra : the more heads you chop off, the more grow up in their place. A pedestrian analogy I can draw would be Brain from Pinky & the Brain with the only difference that Fu Manchu’s plans almost always succeed. Ever pondering his next evil machination Fu Manchu takes Smith and Petrie for a merry ride across England.
Let’s face it, Sax Rohmer might have been ‘inspired’ by that other gentleman in 221B but I would say it borders more on plagiarism than simple inspiration. There are more than one resemblances to a shrewd and unsentimental investigator and his side kick who is a doctor in this story. Where Rohmer succeeds in rescuing his creation is by making his evil genius stand taller than his sleuths. The evil doctor is in London aided by secret Chinese councils and looking for Chinese takeover of the British empire. He has an army at his beck and call complete with thugs, femme fatales, a lush supply of Opium and monstrous sidekicks straight out of laboratories. This being the first story the evil doctor is hell bent on killing everyone who stands in his way but his methods are what makes him such a magnificent antagonist. It is not every day that you come against a villain with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan and live to tell the tale.
As pulp fiction this is one of the best I have read for it has all the ingredients : guns, action, women, scheming villains and so on. The racism is rather inexcusable and I cannot really recommend this book. But being an insatiable sucker for good stories, I will follow Fu Manchu for some more time.
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