Sax Rohmer

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Sax Rohmer (born February 15, 1883 in Birmingham , Great Britain , † June 1, 1959 in White Plains , New York , USA ; actually Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward ) was an English crime writer and esotericist. Sax Rohmer has cult characters such as Dr. Fu Manchu or Sumuru.

Live and act

The Birmingham-born Rohmer published his first short story, The Mysterious Mummy, in Pearson's Weekly in 1903 . In 1909 he married Rose Knox . He earned his living mainly by writing sketches for artists in music halls and with other short and serial stories for magazines. His first novel, break! , published anonymously in 1910. His work as a journalist also took him to the Chinatown area of London and inspired him to create the new character, Dr. Fu Manchu . Between 1912 and 1913, the first series of stories entitled The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu released and an instant hit. Further stories about Fu Manchu made Rohmer a successful and wealthy writer, although his real love was the Middle East, but especially Egypt. His story Brood of the Witch-Queen (1918), set there, is regarded by fans as one of his best novels. After the Second World War, Rohmer moved to New York.

Film adaptations

Rohmer's famous fictional characters were embodied by great actors in well-known films of the 1960s: Christopher Lee played the criminal genius Dr. Fu Manchu and Shirley Eaton (known as the gold-painted girl in the James Bond film Goldfinger ) played the role of Sumuru in the films Sumuru - The Daughter of Satan and The Seven Men of Sumuru .

First star as Dr. Fu Manchu was Warner Oland (who later became even more famous than detective Charlie Chan ) who played him in three early talkies: The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929), The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930) and 1931 Daughter of the Dragon . Boris Karloff then played the character in The Mask of Fu Manchu ( The Mask of Fu-Manchu ) in 1932 . A cinema series also picked up the character in Drums of Fu Manchu in the 1940s and a short-lived television series called The Adventures of Fu Manchu followed in the mid-1950s .

The magician David T. Bamberg , who worked on the stage under the pseudonym Fu Manchu from 1929 , played in six Mexican Fu Manchu films in the 1940s.

Fu Manchu was revived after the death of Sax Rohmer in the 1960s in numerous, qualitatively very different films in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967) , The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) and The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969), all starring Christopher Lee.

Producer Harry Alan Towers (also the creator of numerous English Edgar Wallace film adaptations ) put on two films with the character Sumuru (which had the science fiction adaptation Sumuru - Planet of Women in 2003) and the legendary English one In 1980, character actor Peter Sellers drove the spoof The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu at. Fu Manchu also appeared in various Marvel Comics ( Masters of Kung-Fu ) and received two follow-up novels from Rohmer biographer Cay van Ash . In 2007 another follow-up novel by William Patrick Maynard will appear under the title The Terror of Fu Manchu .

Works (selection)

Individual novels
  • Break!. 1910
  • The Sins of Séverac Bablon. 1912
    • German: The ring of Séverac Bablon. Goldmann, Leipzig 1930.
  • The Yellow Claw. 1915.
    • German: The yellow claw. Rijke and Stock, Berlin 1928.
    • German: Under the spell of the golden dragon. Bergh, Zug, 1978.
  • The Devil Docter. 1916.
    • German: The hell doctor. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin, 1928.
  • The Si-Fan Mysteries. 1917
  • Tales of Secret Egypt. 1918
    • German: Mysterious Egypt. Goldmann, Leipzig 1932.
  • Dope. 1919
  • The Golden Scorpion. 1919
    • German: The Golden Scorpion. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin 1928.
  • The Dream Detective. 1920
  • Tales of Chinatown. 1922
    • German: In the shadow of the Chinese quarter. Goldmann, Leipzig 1932.
  • Yellow Shadows. 1925
    • German: yellow shadows. Goldmann, Leipzig 1933.
  • Fire tongue . 1920.
    • German: fire tongue. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin 1927.
  • The gray face . 1927.
    • German: The gray face. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin, 1927.
  • Brood of the witch queen .
    • German: The mummy beetles. Pabel, Rastatt, 1974.
  • The haunting of Low Fennel .
    • German: The turquoise chain. Goldmann, Leipzig, 1933.
  • She who sleeps . 1927.
    • German: The sleeper. Goldmann, Leipzig 1931.
  • The emperor of America .
    • German: The Emperor of America. Goldmann, Leipzig 1930.
  • Bat Wing . 1925.
    • German: vampire wings. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin 1928.
  • The day, the world ended .
    • German: The holy slipper. Goldmann, Leipzig 1930.
    • German: The day on which the world should end. Goldmann, Leipzig 1931.
  • Moon of Madness .
    • German: The moon of madness. Goldmann, Leipzig 1932.
  • The opium king. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin, 1927.
Fu Manchu cycle
  • The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. 1913.
    • German first edition: The Mission of Dr. Fu Manchu. Rijke et al. Stock, Berlin, 1927.
    • German new edition: The secret of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Edition Sven-Erik Bergh, Zug, 1975 and Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach, 1980.
  • The Book of Fu-Manchu. 1929
  • The Daughter of Fu-Manchu. 1931
  • Fu-Manchu's Bride. 1933
  • The Drums of Fu-Manchu. 1939
  • The Shadow of Fu-Manchu. 1948
  • Re-enter Fu-Manchu. 1957

literature

  • Cay Van Ash, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer: Master of Villainy. Stacey, London 1972, ISBN 0-85468-299-6 (biography).
  • Bradford M. Day: Sax Rohmer. A bibliography. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Publications, Denver 1963.
  • Phil Baker & Antony Clayton (eds.): Lord of strange deaths: Sax Rohmer , London: Strange Attractor Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-907222-25-2

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rohmer, Sax
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ward, Arthur Henry Sarsfield (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British crime writer and esotericist
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham , UK
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1959
Place of death White Plains , New York , USA