Albion's Pulp: An Appreciation for Sax Rohmer
The Arbo Files
Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horror, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by “Sax Rohmer” (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Door of the Unreal, by Gerald Biss. The latter handles quite dexterously the standard werewolf superstition.
—H.P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”
In the contemporary mind, H.P. Lovecraft stands above all other weird fiction writers, save for a select few like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Even Lovecraft’s friends and fellow members of the “Lovecraft Circle” such as Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber are considered second-tier to the Old Gentleman from Providence. What then are we to make of Sax Rohmer? Do you even know who that is? Once upon a time, almost everyone in the Anglophone world knew the penname of Sax Rohmer, the premiere pulpster of the early twentieth century. These days, although many know his characters and creations, few recognize their source.
Sax Rohmer was born Arthur Henry “Sarsfield” Ward on February 15, 1883, in the grimy industrial city of Birmingham, England. Throughout much of his adult life, Ward spun fabulous tales about himself. He told many that he was a defrocked priest, a master occultist associated with the infamous Golden Dawn, and a secret agent for the British government. The book Master of Villainy by Cay Van Ash and Elizabeth Sax Rohmer, his wife, makes it abundantly clear that Ward was a confidence man who participated in various financial schemes and frauds in order to obtain filthy lucre. He also ran with a group of gents called the Cockney Oakmead Road Gang, who covered for Ward’s various shady dealings and numerous affairs. Maybe such antics were pathological for Ward; maybe it was just a case of an ambitious man trying to surmount his start in life as the working-class son of Irish immigrants. Whatever the case, a frenetic energy drove Ward to become Sax Rohmer, the master of suspenseful tales.
Ward took the dangerous path of a professional writer while still in his twenties. He first specialized in writing for the music halls. However, he published his first short story, “The Mysterious Mummy,” in 1903. From there on, Ward focused all of his creativity on short stories and serialized novels. This career in sensationalist literature lasted for an astounding fifty-six years. Rohmer’s most enduring achievement came early on in his career when, in 1913, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu was published under his Rohmer identity.
Dr. Fu-Manchu (also spelled as Dr. Fu Manchu) is a master of crime with a vast network of cutthroats and murderers in Asia and Europe. In Rohmer’s many novels featuring the character, we learn that Dr. Fu-Manchu is a genius, as master of Mesmerism, a prolific scientist, and a maestro in the art of torture. He is also a member of a dangerous Chinese tong whose mission is to eliminate all Westerners living in China. Later, in the books penned by Rohmer as well as other authors given official license to continue the series, Fu-Manchu becomes the leader of an international tong whose goal is to spread communism to all corners of the globe. Throughout the entire series, Dr. Fu-Manchu’s primary goal never wavers: the restoration of China to past glory as the supreme power in Asia.
Dr. Fu-Manchu’s opponents are the reliable duo of Sir Dennis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. Smith, the overarching hero of the tales, is an officer in the Indian Imperial Police who follows Fu-Manchu from the jungles of Burma to the opium dens of London’s Limehouse district. The dance of death between Dr. Fu-Manchu and Smith is meant to be a fictional representation of the eternal war between the Occident and Orient. As such, Rohmer is often credited with creating “Yellow Peril” fiction, which shows the East (especially China) and her people as exotic, erotic, and evil. Rohmer did not create the sub-genre, but he certainly popularized it. These days, Yellow Peril stories and their creators are vilified for trafficking in racism, and as such, Rohmer’s Dr. Fu-Manchu novels are usually consumed only by pulp enthusiasts.
Rohmer’s catalog included much more that Dr. Fu-Manchu. The author had a fascination with Ancient Egypt, and this interest is best represented by his 1918 novel, Brood of the Witch-Queen. In the novel, which Lovecraft positively compared to Bram Stoker’s immortal Dracula, a series of hideous crimes are all connected by to a secret chamber in an Egyptian pyramid containing the Book of Thoth. Unlike most of Rohmer’s work, which toyed with the supernatural only to brush it all aside with scientific explanations, Brood of the Witch-Queen does engage with occult ideas about possession. Another such novel, Grey Face (1924), concerns a mysterious grey face that haunts the life of Londoner Douglas Carey. Not only does he see the face as it follows him throughout the city, but it also shows its unfriendly visage to the woman that Carey’s loves.
But, as good as Rohmer’s standalone novels are, he truly buttered his bread with serial characters. One of his better creations, the so-called “Dream Detective” Morris Klaw, appeared in several excellent short stories throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Another occult detective, Paul Harvey, is not only a private investigator, but also a “consultant” for the British Empire. Harvey appeared in two wonderful pulp novellas in the 1920s: Bat Wing and Fire-Tongue. The 1920s proved to be Rohmer’s most prolific decade, as the author churned one solid outing after another. Most of his 1920s novels focused on crime stories with outré elements, like 1920’s The Green Eyes of Bast, which told a fabulous yarn about murder and Ancient Egyptian cults. Rohmer’s fascination with crime and criminals made him a self-styled expert on the matter, and fans and law enforcement figures alike often asked the author his opinions on criminal matters.
Rohmer’s prodigious output never wavered as he aged. The author continued to publish almost a novel a year until his death in 1959 (caused by the Asian flu, no less). In 1936, one political decision removed a sizable part of Rohmer’s audience when the National Socialist government in Berlin banned his books under the mistaken belief that “Rohmer” was a Jewish surname. (In 1925, Rohmer did write a crime novel with a Jewish protagonist called The Sins of Séverac Bablon, which is a type of Robin Hood-esque tale that plays up familiar Jewish stereotypes.) Rohmer defended himself and his work as being “not inimical to Nazi ideals.” By the time World War II ended, Rohmer and his wife lived in New York City. They would return to London years later. Rohmer is still there, buried beneath the same English soil that cultivated him. His work lives on, especially in the many Dr. Fu-Manchu films, including the incredible (and widely suppressed) The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Even as late as the radical 1960s, Britain’s Hammer Film Productions churned out several Fu-Manchu films starring Christopher Lee as the titular villain. That is quite the legacy.
In his many incarnations, Arthur Ward, aka Sax Rohmer, dedicated his life to pulp fiction. The legions that he influenced included Robert E. Howard, who penned many Rohmer-esque Yellow Peril stories and novellas in the 1920s and ‘30s. Although they are not as popular as they once were, Rohmer’s publications have not gone away or out-of-print. They can still be found online and in the occasional bookstore. They may seem dated, but they are fun. Rohmer was among the first generation of pulp writers, and in many ways, he was the best.
Awesome write-up! I’ll have to check some of these out. ‘Witch-Queen’ and the ‘Dream Detective’ sound right up my alley.