The Dr. Fu-Manchu

"The man seated there wore alose yellow robe. His elbows rested on the desk, and his fingers-long yellow fingers - were pressed together; hw might have reminded an observer of a praying mantis. He had the hight brow of a philosopher and features suggesting great intellectual powers."

Emperor Fu Manchu Sax Rohmer, 1959. Titan Books 2015

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Other Fu-Manchu Books Published by Titan Books

The Mystery of Fu-Manchu
The Return of Fu-Manchu
The Hand of Fu-Manchu
Daughter of Fu-Manchu
The Mask of Fu-Manchu
The Bride of Fu-Manchu
The President of Fu-Manchu
The Drums of Fu-Manchu
The Shaddow of Fu-Manchu
Renter Fu-Manchu
The Wrath of Fu-Manchu and Other Stories

Fu-Manchu Revisited

"The high forehead, the chiseled, aggressive nose, the thin lips, were those of an aristocrat, a thinker, and a devil."

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Most of what I have read of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu-Manchu series have been eubs. Project Guntenberg feature a few of Rohmer's Dr. Fu-Manchu novels. In addition, to the Dr. Fu-Manchu series they offer a few additional titles. All that I have read have been great and suspenseful reads.

Here is a list from Wikipedia of Rohmers Fu-Manchu novels

Fu-Manchu Novels by Sax Rohmer

• The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913). A number of 1912 stories were combined into this novel.
• The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1916).
• The Hand of Fu Manchu (1917).
• Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931).
• The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).
• The Bride of Fu Manchu (1933).
• The Trail of Fu Manchu (1934).
• President Fu Manchu (1936).
• The Drums of Fu Manchu (1939).
• The Island of Fu Manchu (1940).
• The Shadow of Fu Manchu (1948).
• The Shadow of Fu Manchu (1948).
• The Shadow of Fu Manchu (1948).
• Re-Enter:Fu Manchu (1957).
• Emperor Fu Manchu (1959).

The Wrath of Fu Manchu (1973). Actually a combination of the previously published stories:

• The Wrath of Fu Manchu (1952)
• The Eyes of Fu Manchu (1957)
• The Word of Fu Manchu (1958)
• The Mind of Fu Manchu (1959)

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More References to Fu-Manchu

Chronology of Dr. Fu Manchu and Sir Denis Nayland Smith

More of his excellency Dr. Fu-Manchu,

Public Domain Comics Wiki(Fu-Manchu )

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"He spoke every civilized language with near perfection, and knows countless dialects as well. He has the brains of any three men of genius."

Quotes are from Emperor Fu Manchu (1959).

Emperor Fu-Manchu

It has been awhile since my last encounter with his excellency Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Previously ->

"During the Cold War of the 1950s former allies Russia and China turned Communist. Their threat casting a shadow over the free world. Yet another enemy lurked in the shadows - the deadly secret assassin's of the Si Fan led by Dr. Fu-Manchu."

"In remote northern China, the dead walk again. An American agent, Tony MacKay finds himself face to face with these 'cold-men', zombies who exist to do the bidding of Fu-Manchu, the devil Doctor. "

Emperor Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer, © 1959

Fu Manchu, Criminal Mastermind

"A brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan. Eyes of true cat-green. I was looking at one of the most facinating faces I had ever seen."

Cover illustration from the British first edition hardcover of Emperor Fu-Manchu, published in 1959 by Herbert Jenkins.

Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer, Titan Books

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Fu Manchu a criminal master mind

The Six Gates of Joyful Wisdom

Before my horrified gaze four huge rats came tumbling out from the bag into the cage! The dacoit snatched away the sack and snapped the shutter fast. A moving mist obscured my sight, a mist through which I saw the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu fixed upon me, and through which, as from a great distance, his voice, sunk to a snake-like hiss, came to my ears.

"Cantonese rats, Dr. Petrie, the most ravenous in the world... they have eaten nothing for nearly a week!"

Then all became blurred as though a painter with a brush steeped in red had smudged out the details of the picture. For an indefinite period, which seemed like many minutes yet probably was only a few seconds, I saw nothing and heard nothing; my sensory nerves were dulled entirely. From this state I was awakened and brought back to the realities by a sound which ever afterward I was doomed to associate with that ghastly scene.

This was the squealing of the rats.

The red mist seemed to disperse at that, and with frightfully intense interest, I began to study the awful torture to which Nayland Smith was being subjected. The dacoit had disappeared, and Fu-Manchu placidly was watching the four lean and hideous animals in the cage. As I also turned my eyes in that direction, the rats overcame their temporary fear, and began...

"You have been good enough to notice," said the Chinaman, his voice still sunk in that sibilant whisper, "my partiality for dumb allies. You have met my scorpions, my death-adders, my baboon-man. The uses of such a playful little animal as a marmoset have never been fully appreciated before, I think, but to an indiscretion of this last-named pet of mine, I seem to remember that you owed something in the past, Dr. Petrie..."

Nayland Smith stifled a deep groan. One rapid glance I ventured at his face. It was a grayish hue, now, and dank with perspiration. His gaze met mine.

The rats had almost ceased squealing.

"Much depends upon yourself, Doctor," continued Fu-Manchu, slightly raising his voice. "I credit Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith with courage high enough to sustain the raising of all the gates; but I estimate the strength of your friendship highly, also, and predict that you will use the sword of the samurai certainly not later than the time when I shall raise the third gate...."

A low shuddering sound, which I cannot hope to describe, but alas I can never forget, broke from the lips of the tortured man.

"In China," resumed Fu-Manchu, "we call this quaint fancy the Six Gates of joyful Wisdom. The first gate, by which the rats are admitted, is called the Gate of joyous Hope; the second, the Gate of Mirthful Doubt. The third gate is poetically named, the Gate of True Rapture, and the fourth, the Gate of Gentle Sorrow. I once was honored in the friendship of an exalted mandarin who sustained the course of joyful Wisdom to the raising of the Fifth Gate (called the Gate of Sweet Desires) and the admission of the twentieth rat. I esteem him almost equally with my ancestors. The Sixth, or Gate Celestial—whereby a man enters into the joy of Complete Understanding—I have dispensed with, here, substituting a Japanese fancy of an antiquity nearly as great and honorable. The introduction of this element of speculation, I count a happy thought, and accordingly take pride to myself.

Chapter 29, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

The Ghoulish Dr. Fu-Manchu-Evil Incarnate

"In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, he sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of incredible evil. In spite of, or because of, the high intellect written upon it, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more utterly repellent than any I have ever known, and the green eyes, eyes green as those of a cat in the darkness, which sometimes burned like witch lamps, and sometimes were horribly filmed like nothing human or imaginable, might have mirrored not a soul, but an emanation of hell, incarnate in this gaunt, high-shouldered body.

Always underlying the deliberate calm of the speaker, sometimes showing itself in an unusually deep guttural, sometimes in an unusually serpentine sibilance, lurked the frenzy of hatred which in the past had revealed itself occasionally in wild outbursts.

I glanced toward Fu-Manchu. He was watching Nayland Smith, and revealing his irregular yellow teeth—the teeth of an opium smoker—in the awful mirthless smile which I knew.

'God!" whispered Smith—"the Six Gates!'

'The knowledge of my beautiful country serves you well," replied Fu-Manchu gently.'"

Chapter 28, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

The Coming Horror and the Wrath of Heaven

"Coming as they did, horror and the wrath of heaven together, suddenly, crashingly, black and angry after the fairness of the day, these happenings and their setting must have terrorized the stoutest heart; but somehow I seemed detached, as I have said, and set apart from the whirl of events; a spectator. Even when a vague yellow light crept across the room from the direction of the door, and flickered unsteadily on the bed, I remained unmoved to a certain degree, although passively alive to the significance of the incident. I realized that the ultimate issue was at hand, but either because I was emotionally exhausted, or from some other cause, the pending climax failed to disturb me."

Chapter 23, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

A Host of Characters - Dr. Fu Manchu

"The enormously long nail of his right index finger rested upon the opened page of the book to which he seemed constantly to refer, dividing his attention between the volume, the contents of the test-tube, and the progress of a second experiment, or possibly a part of the same, which was taking place upon another corner of the littered table."

Chapter 19, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

A Typical Fu-Manuchu Labortory

This is not the first laboratory we have seen the Dr. absorbed in his work. Horrifying as it may be, it seems like Dr. Fu-Manchu well adept in his experiments. He only knows the object of his research.

"The end in which I lay, was, as I have said, typical of an Eastern house, and a large, ornate lantern hung from the ceiling almost directly above me. The further end of the room was occupied by tall cases, some of them containing books, but the majority filled with scientific paraphernalia; rows of flasks and jars, frames of test-tubes, retorts, scales, and other objects of the laboratory. At a large and very finely carved table sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, a yellow and faded volume open before him, and some dark red fluid, almost like blood, bubbling in a test-tube which he held over the flame of a Bunsen-burner.

A huge glass retort (the bulb was fully two feet in diameter), fitted with a Liebig's Condenser, rested in a metal frame, and within the bulb, floating in an oily substance, was a fungus some six inches high, shaped like a toadstool, but of a brilliant and venomous orange color. Three flat tubes of light were so arranged as to cast violet rays upward into the retort, and the receiver, wherein condensed the product of this strange experiment, contained some drops of a red fluid which may have been identical with that boiling in the test-tube."

Chapter 19, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Dr. Petrie Compiles his Notes

"I glanced up from my notes. Smith settled into the white cane armchair, and began to surround himself with clouds of aromatic smoke. I took up a half-sheet of foolscap covered with penciled writing in my friend's cramped characters, and transcribed the following, in order to complete my account of the latest Fu-Manchu outrage:

"The Amharun, a Semitic tribe allied to the Falashas, who have been settled for many generations in the southern province of Shoa (Abyssinia) have been regarded as unclean and outcast, apparently since the days of Menelek—son of Suleyman and the Queen of Sheba—from whom they claim descent. Apart from their custom of eating meat cut from living beasts, they are accursed because of their alleged association with the Cynocephalus hamadryas (Sacred Baboon). I, myself, was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature... whose predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity toward... and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its furry brethren. Its powers of scent were fully equal to those of a bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long forearms possessed incredible strength... a Cynocephalyte such as this, contracts phthisis even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia..."

Chapter 19, The Return of Dr. FU-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Dr. Petrie's Reflections

"Any one who has been forced by circumstance to undertake such a vigil as this will be familiar with the marked changes (corresponding with phases of the earth's movement) which take place in the atmosphere, at midnight, at two o'clock, and again at four o'clock. During those fours hours falls a period wherein all life is at its lowest ebb, and every Physician is aware that there is a greater likelihood of a patient's passing between midnight and four A. M., than at any other period during the cycle of the hours.

To-night I became specially aware of this lowering of vitality, and now, with the night at that darkest phase which precedes the dawn, an indescribable dread, such as I had known before in my dealings with the Chinaman, assailed me, when I was least prepared to combat it. The stillness was intense."

Chapter 16 The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Diverting of Beneficent Forces into Strange and Dangerous Channels

"I glanced around at the books upon my shelves. Often enough, following some outrage by the brilliant Chinese doctor whose genius was directed to the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a clue in those works of a scientific nature which bulk largely in the library of a medical man. There are creatures, there are drugs, which, ordinarily innocuous, may be so employed as to become inimical to human life; and in the distorting of nature, in the disturbing of balances and the diverting of beneficent forces into strange and dangerous channels, Dr. Fu-Manchu excelled. I had known him to enlarge, by artificial culture, a minute species of fungus so as to render it a powerful agent capable of attacking man; his knowledge of venomous insects has probably never been paralleled in the history of the world; whilst, in the sphere of pure toxicology, he had, and has, no rival; the Borgias were children by comparison. But, look where I would, think how I might, no adequate explanation of this latest outrage seemed possible along normal lines."

Chapter 14, The Return of Dr. Fj-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

A Host of Characters-Dr. Fu-Manchu-Sacred Order of the White Peacock

"The place was utterly deserted again, and we two panting captives found ourselves alone with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The scene was unforgettable; that dimly lighted passage, its extremities masked in shadow, and the tall, yellow-robed figure of the Satanic Chinaman towering over us where we lay.

"You come at an opportune time, Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith, and Dr. Petrie; at a time when the greatest man in China flatters me with a visit. In my absence from home, a tremendous honor has been conferred upon me, and, in the hour of this supreme honor, dishonor and calamity have befallen! For my services to China—the New China, the China of the future—I have been admitted by the Sublime Prince to the Sacred Order of the White Peacock."

Chapter 13, The Return of Dr. Fj-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Australian Death-adder

"Merciful God!" I groaned.

Although, in every other particular, it corresponded with that which I held—which I had taken from the dacoit—which he had come to substitute for the cane now lying upon the floor—in one dreadful particular it differed.

Up to the snake's head it was an accurate copy; but the head lived!

Either from pain, fear or starvation, the thing confined in the hollow tube of this awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise, no power on earth could have saved me from the fate of Abel Slattin; for the creature was an Australian death-adder."

Chapter 10, The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

The Crescent of the Moon Looked Down Upon Us

"Through a temporary rift in the veiling the crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a greenish tint, and it set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of Fu-Manchu."

Chapter 6, The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Dusk Brings a Cloud of Apprehensions

"Dusk always brought with it a cloud of apprehensions, for darkness must ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks had struck the mystic hour "when churchyards yawn," that the hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim."

Chapter 4, The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

The Yellow Peril-A Host of Characters

Once again Dr. Fu-Manchu, the 'Yellow Peril' is up to his diabolical ways. The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu is the second in the Sax Rohmer Dr. Fu-Manchu series. The series gives me fodder for my own pulp games and scenarios.

"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, with all the resources of science, past and present, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the 'Yellow Peril' incarnate in one man."

"If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the peace of the world, may be threatened anew at any moment!"

Chapter 1, The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Two Woldnewton References to Dr. Fu Manchu

Both references are from the same site and comprise elements from the Wold Newton Universe. At any rate, it is an interesting take on Dr. Fu Manchu and other characters found in the Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu story. This post will complete my Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu series. We will pick it up again the next episode.

• Chronology of Dr. Fu Manchu and Sir Denis Nayland Smith
• The Dynasty of Fu Manchu: A Look at the Genealogies of the Heroes and Villains of the Fu Manchu Series

A Farewell Note from Dr. Fu-Manchu

In some mysterious manner Dr. Fu-Manchu escapes from the flames and judging from other writings, we will see the good Doctor again.

"As I write, there lies before me a soiled and creased sheet of vellum. It bears some lines traced in a cramped, peculiar, and all but illegible hand. This fragment was found by Inspector Weymouth (to this day a man mentally sound) in a pocket of his ragged garments.

When it was written I leave you to judge. How it came to be where Weymouth found it calls for no explanation:

'To Mr. Commissioner NAYLAND SMITH and Dr. PETRIE—

Greeting! I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. In much that I came to do I have failed. Much that I have done I would undo; some little I have undone. Out of fire I came—the smoldering fire of a thing one day to be a consuming flame; in fire I go. Seek not my ashes. I am the lord of the fires! Farewell.'

"FU-MANCHU."

Chapter 30, The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer

Dr. Fu-Manchu, the Ultimate Expression of Chinese Cunning

"Dr. Fu-Manchu," replied the former, "was the ultimate expression of Chinese cunning; a phenomenon such as occurs but once in many generations. He was a superman of incredible genius, who, had he willed, could have revolutionized science. There is a superstition in some parts of China according to which, under certain peculiar conditions (one of which is proximity to a deserted burial-ground) an evil spirit of incredible age may enter unto the body of a new-born infant. All my efforts thus far have not availed me to trace the genealogy of the man called Dr. Fu-Manchu. Even Karamaneh cannot help me in this. But I have sometimes thought that he was a member of a certain very old Kiangsu family—and that the peculiar conditions I have mentioned prevailed at his birth!"

Chapter 27, The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer