Sax Rohmer (1883-1959) created Fu Manchu in 1911, with the first section of the serial appearing in October 1912. “The Zayat Kiss” opens the novel that would come to be called The Mystery of Fu Manchu and later The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (1913). This was the first of thirteen novels. Many people think of the evil Asian villain with his long, thin mustache but few have actually read these books in recent years. This is not hard to understand. They permeate the British racism of the 1910s. The idea of Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie running around London trying to stop this alien fiend is pretty obviously borrowed from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moriarty. The Yellow Peril-isms are all Sax Rohmer’s.
Now whether you choose to read these thrillers, which I grant are fast-paced reading despite their less savory elements, you have to acknowledge that Fu had his influence over the Pulp magazines that followed his creation. To this day, dictionaries refer to a long mustache as a “Fu Manchu mustache”. Sax Rohmer was serialized in magazines like Collier’s but his shadow can be detected in the works of those who sold to Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales.
“The Foot Fetish” (June 1926) by Howard R. Marsh has cultists from the Gobi deserts after an American girl with a sacred birthmark.
“The Peacock’s Shadow” (October 1926) by E. Hoffman Price and sequels. Occult detective, Pierre D’Artois goes up against his nemesis, Lord Peacock, Malik Taus. For more on the Pierre D’Artois stories go here.
“The Devil’s Rosary” by Seabury Quinn (April 1929) has a different occult detective, Jules de Grandin. In his ninety-three stories, de Grandin faces off against all kinds of evil. This time it is Tibetan monks.
A fairly obvious and ambitious one is Robert E. Howard’s “Skull-Face” (Weird Tales, October November December 1929) REH had the unfortunate luck to have WT featuring their Gaston LeRoux stories during this serial. “Skull-Face” got no covers. Arkham House released the first collection of Robert E. Howard stories in 1946, Skull-Face and Others. The fact that “Skull-Face” is the lead in that book shows it must have impressed August Derleth. Mary Gnaedinger reprinted the novella in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, December 1952.
“The Dust of Death” by Hugh Jeffries (May 1931) has Dr. Tsu Liang menacing all of America with deadly spores from giant puffballs.
“King Cobra” by Joseph O. Kesselring (December 1933) has people in the West Indies attacked by Spider Horrosek, master of snakes.
“Wizard’s Isle” by Jack Williamson (June 1934) features an Asian super-villain, Iskander, Wizard of Life. Read about it here.
“The Living Buddhess” by Seabury Quinn (November 1937) has Jules de Grandin facing off against the lamas of Asia. The Virgil Finlay illo gives a pretty good idea what terror threatens all-American girls in this one.
Weird Tales did not have a monopoly on Fu Manchu knock-offs. For example, “Anthony Gilmore” (Harry Bates and Desmond Hall) had their space hero Hawk Carse face off against Kui Su, an obvious Fu clone in Astounding Stories of Super-Science. Even when he is supposedly killed after the last original story, Harry Bates resurrected him Fu style for “The Return of Hawk Carse”. You can’t keep a good super-villain down. Many other Pulps, adventure, detective and Science Fiction, casually made their baddies “evil Orientals”.
Conclusion
You could imagine that Fu Macnhu’s shadow ended with the Pulps, but that isn’t true. Dr. No (1957) by Ian Fleming is heavily influenced by Fu. Dr. No, who is part-Asian, uses poisonous spiders and octopuses to kill his enemies, dwelling in a secret base on an island. His spies and agents are everywhere. Fleming willing admitted the influence.
In 1973, Marvel Comics created a Kung-Fu fighting superhero in Shang-Chi. In the original run his father was Fu Manchu. Later the company dropped this for copyright issues. The racism that was found in Sax Rohmer’s work will guarantee fewer and fewer people will read his books but the shadow of Fu Manchu will be with us for decades yet.
