ROHMER, Sax. The Si-Fan Mysteries. London: Methuen & Co. 1917.
8vo. Original rust coloured cloth, lettered in black to the upper board and spine; pp. 306, [2], 31 (publisher's catalogue); slight lean to spine, spine very lightly sunned with head and tail bumped, some spotting to edges of text block, but generally very good; bookseller’s ticket "W.H. Smith & Son … Paris" to front pastedown; "Ex libris T. L. Demon" neatly written in ink to front free endpaper.
First edition, rare, of the third Fu-Manchu title.
Spanning from Fu Manchu’s first appearance in 1912, Rohmer authored a series of fourteen novels featuring the Chinese supervillain. Inscrutable and sinister, Fu Manchu orchestrates crimes through his minions and employs arcane methods, including the use of poisonous animals and natural chemical weapons. The character’s immediate success stemmed from his embodiment of "the genre of the 'yellow peril' mystery, which expressed Western fears of the expansion of Asian power and influence" (Britannica). Fu Manchu appeared in several silent and sound films, radio, and comic strips.
Sax Rohmer was the pseudonym of British writer Arthur Henry Ward (1883-1959).
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