Fun Facts Friday: Sax Rohmer

Pro­lific Eng­lish author Sax Rohmer was born on this day in 1883 (d: 1 June, 1959). Mr. Rohmer is best known for his series fea­tur­ing the mas­ter­mind Dr. Fu Manchu. A few months ago I also did a Fun Facts post about the char­ac­ter Dr. Fu-Manchu.

More books by Sax Rohmer

1. Sax Rohmer’s real name is Arthur Henry Sars­field Ward.
2. Before being a nov­el­ist, Rohmer was a song and com­edy sketch writer.
3. Rohmer claimed his was a mem­ber for the qab­bal­is­tic Her­metic Order of the Golden Dawn as well as hav­ing ties to the Rosi­cru­cians (study or mem­ber­ship in secret soci­eties). How­ever his claims were never proven and many think that they were just used to boost his rep­u­ta­tion as an occult writer.
4. Among his lit­er­ary influ­ences Rohmer named Edgar Allan Poe, M.P. Shiel and Arthur Conan Doyle.
5. Rohmer pub­lished his first novel called Pause! Anonymously.
6. The Mys­tery of Dr. Fu-Manchu was an imme­di­ate success.
7. The first three books in the Fu-Manchu series were pub­lished between 1913 and1917. The fourth book was pub­lished in 1931 (14 years later). Between 1931 and 1959, Rohmer wrote 10 more nov­els in the series.
8. Con­trary to Rohmer’s books which tells of a crime rid­den Chi­nese com­mu­nity in Lon­don, the  Chi­nese in London’s Lime­house dis­trict were the most low abid­ing com­mu­nity of all the eth­nic minorities.
9. In his novel, The Romance of Sor­cery, Rohmer based his pro­tag­o­nist, a mys­tery solv­ing magi­cian named Bazarada, on his friend Harry Houdini.
10. Rohmer cre­ated a super-villainess named Sumuru which was basi­cally a female ver­sion of Fu-Manchu.

More books by Sax Rohmer

Zohar — Man of la Book

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