Fu Manchu

The first novel in the series

Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character in novels by British author Sax Rohmer in the first half of the 20th century.

The character was also featured in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years He is an archetype of the evil genius.

Details

The author's description of him was:

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man".
–The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

A master criminal, Fu Manchu's murderous plots are marked by a use of biological warfare. He usually avoids guns or explosives, preferring dacoits, thuggee, and members of other secret societies as his agents. They use knives, or "pythons and cobras ... fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli ... my black spiders" and other peculiar animals or natural chemical weapons.

In the earliest books, Fu Manchu is an agent of the secret society, the Si-Fan. and is the mastermind behind a wave of assassinations of Western imperialists. In later books, he seeks control of the Si-Fan. The Si-Fan is largely funded through criminal activities, particularly the drug trade and white slavery. Dr. Fu Manchu has extended his already considerable lifespan by use of the elixir vitae (elixir of life), a formula he spent decades trying to perfect.

Fu Manchu is opposed by a typical English detective of the Sherlock Holmes type: Denis Nayland Smith. Fu Manchu's daughter, Fah Lo Suee, is a devious mastermind in her own right, plotting to usurp her father's position in the Si-Fan, and aiding his enemies within and outside of the organisation. Her real name is unknown; Fah lo Suee was a childhood term of endearment. She has been played by Anna May Wong, Myrna Loy, and several other actresses.

Criticism

I. W. Publications' Dr. Fu Manchu (1958), reprinting material from Avon Comics, cover art by Carl Burgos

Dr. Fu Manchu has been criticized as an overtly racist creation. A review in The Independent, says "These magnificently absurd books, glowing with a crazed exoticism, are really far less polar, less black-and-white, less white-and-yellow, than they first seem".

Actors

Actors who have played Fu Manchu in movies include Boris Karloff (once), Warner Oland (four times), and Christopher Lee (five times).

Actresses who played his daughter Fa Lo Suee include Myrna Loy and Anna May Wong, but most of all by Tsai Chin, who played the role five times in the 1960s. The character of Fa Lo Suee was usually renamed to a form which could be pronounced more easily.

The other female character who appears in several of the stories, and hence in some of the films, is Karamaneh, styled "Kâramanèh". The story-line is that she was sold to the Si-Fan by Egyptian slave traders while she was still a child. She appears in five novels of the series as a love interest.

Books

1. The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) (US title: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu).
2. The Devil Doctor (1916) (US title: The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu)
3. The Si-Fan Mysteries) (1917) (US Title: The Hand of Fu Manchu}
4. Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931)
5. The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
6. The Bride of Fu Manchu (1933) (US Title: Fu Manchu's Bride)
7. The Trail of Fu Manchu (1934)
8. President Fu Manchu (1936)
9. The Drums of Fu Manchu (1939)
10. The Island of Fu Manchu (1941)
11. The Shadow of Fu Manchu (1958)
12. Re-Enter: Dr. Fu Manchu (1957) (US title: Re-Enter Fu Manchu)
13. Emperor Fu Manchu (1959) was Rohmer's last novel.

• The Wrath of Fu Manchu (1973) was a posthumous anthology. It had the title novella, first published in 1952, and three later short stories: The Eyes of Fu Manchu (1957), The Word of Fu Manchu (1958), and The Mind of Fu Manchu (1959).
• Allison & Busby reprinted all the novels plus The Wrath of Fu Manchu in five volumes of an omnibus edition, 1995 to 2000.