Editing Sax Rohmer (section)

== The Fu Manchu series ==
[[File:SAX ROHMER Arthur Henry Ward 1883-1959 Creator of Dr. Fu Manchu lived here.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Blue plaque]] at 51 Herne Hill, [[Herne Hill]], London]]
After penning ''Little Tich'' in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the music hall entertainer [[Little Tich|of the same name]]) he wrote the first Fu Manchu novel, ''[[The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu]]'', first published in a serialisation from October 1912 to June 1913. It was an immediate success, with its story of [[Denis Nayland Smith]] and Dr. Petrie facing the supposed 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 (an [[occult detective]]), and the Crime Magnet — made Rohmer one of the most successful and financially well-off authors of the 1920s and 1930s.

Rohmer believed that conditions for launching a Chinese villain were ideal because the [[Boxer Rebellion]] had "started off rumors of a [[Yellow Peril]] which had not yet died down.<ref name="Crean">{{Cite book |last=Crean |first=Jeffrey |title=The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History |date=2024 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |isbn=978-1-350-23394-2 |edition= |series=New Approaches to International History series |location=London, UK |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=41}} 

The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years between 1913 and 1917; but it was not until 1931 (some 14 years after the third book in the series) that Rohmer returned to the series with ''Daughter of Fu Manchu''. The reason for the long interval was that Rohmer wanted to be rid of the series after ''The Si-Fan Mysteries''. The first three books had been successfully filmed by [[Stoll Pictures|Stoll]] in the twenties as a pair of serials.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/503748/index.html |title=BFI Screenonline: Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu, The (1923) |publisher=screenonline.org.uk}}</ref> 

Rohmer's first effort at reviving the Fu Manchu property was ultimately reworked as ''The Emperor of America''. The original intent had been for the head of the organisation to be Fu Manchu's daughter. He kept Head Centre as a female criminal mastermind to combat Drake Roscoe, but was very unhappy with the book both as it started and in its finished form. He would later return to Drake Roscoe and his female supervillain for the Sumuru series. In the meantime, he tried again to focus his energies on what was first titled ''Fu Manchu's Daughter'' for ''Collier's'' in 1930, but with an older (now knighted) Denis Nayland Smith as the protagonist once more. The results were infinitely better and jump-started the series in the process.

In the 28 years from 1931 to 1959, Rohmer added a further 10 books to the Fu Manchu series, meaning the series totals 13 books in all (not counting the posthumous short story collection ''The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories''). The Fu Manchu series was criticised by the Chinese government and Chinese communities in the U.S. for what was perceived as negative ethnic stereotyping. Sociologist [[Virginia Berridge]] has stated that Rohmer created a false image of London's [[British Chinese|Chinese community]] as crime-ridden, further claiming that the [[Limehouse]] Chinese were one of the most law-abiding of London's ethnic minorities.<ref name=ja /> Critic Jack Adrian has written: "Rohmer's own [[racism]] was careless and casual, a mere symptom of his times".<ref name=ja /> Colin Watson commented: "So vehement and repetitive were Sax Rohmer's references to Asiatic plotting against 'white' civilisation that they cannot be explained simply as the frills of melodramatic narration."<ref>{{cite book|last=Watson |first=Colin |title=Snobbery with Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience |publisher=Faber |year=2009 |pages=44 |isbn=978-0-571-25403-3}}</ref>