Other editions of book The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

A CANNON BOOKS REPRINT *The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu* Written by Sax Rohmer (1883 –1959), the 1913 novel was release in England (The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu) and the United States (The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu), simultaneously. The Early Years: Rohmer’s first three Fu-Manchu novels were published in a block spanning 1913 – 1917. In these early years, Fu-Manchu (as a member of a secret cult, the Si-Fan) spearheads attacks against Western imperialists. These efforts are repeatedly thwarted by the books heroes, Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. Book One:THE INSIDIOUS DR. FU-MANCHU -- WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS IN PERIL! Top government officials and scientists are marked for murder or are shanghaied for their knowledge. The mastermind behind these outlandish attacks is the nefarious genius Dr. Fu-Manchu, an agent of a secret society, the personification of China’s rising power. Fu-Manchu wants nothing less than world domination and the total destruction of the Western way of life. And he is now in LONDON. Commissioner Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie have risen to the occasion. To stop the fanatical Fu-Manchu they must first overcome The Zayat Kiss, The Call of Siva, dacoits, thuggees and chemical weapons. But are they a match for Fu-Manchu's most dangerous weapon, the seductive Karamanèh?

The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu'; published in 1913; is the first novel in writer Sax Rohmer's 'Dr. Fu Manchu series'. It collates various short stories published in the year preceding its first publication. '"A GENTLEMAN to see you; Doctor."From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour."Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up; if you please."I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade; as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet; for a tall; lean man; with his square-cut; clean-shaven face sun-baked to the hue of coffee; entered and extended both hands; with a cry:"Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me; I'll swear!"It was Nayland Smith—whom I had thought to be in Burma!' -an excerpt

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward better known by his pen-name, Sax Rohmer created one of literature's evilest villian in Dr. Fu Manchu (rivaling Sherlock Holmes arch villian Professor Moriarty). He published his first Fu Manchu novel in 1912. It was an immediate success, with its fast-paced story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years 1913–17; but it was not until 1931 (some fourteen years after the third book in the series) that Rohmer returned to the series with The Daughter of Fu Manchu. In the twenty-eight years from 1931 to 1959, Rohmer added no fewer than ten new books to the Fu Manchu series, meaning the series totals thirteen books in all (not counting the posthumous collection The Wrath of Fu Manchu). Swedish American actor Warner Oland played Dr. Fu Manchu in four movies from 1929-31 before leaving the role for Charlie Chan movies. The Fu Manchu series drew much criticism from the Chinese government and Chinese communities in the US for what was seeing as negative ethnic stereotyping.Sociologist Virginia Berridge notes Rohmer created a false image of London's Chinese community as crime-ridden, noting the Limehouse Chinese were one of the most law-abiding of London's ethnic minorities.

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"Imagine a person tall, lean and feline, 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. Imagine that awful being and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu." Dr. Fu Manchu, the terrorizing and macabre master of a secretive Oriental organization, is dedicated to conquering the world. Fu Manchu's greatest nemesis, British investigator Nayland Smith, is one of the few people who can meet Fu Manchu's gaze without falling under his hypnotic power. It is up to Smith and his faithful companion, Dr. Petrie, to foil Dr. Fu Manchu's diabolical plot. In The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, the lethal "Zayat Kiss", a red mark resembling the imprint of painted lips, is found among cocaine needle tracks on the dead body of Sir Chrichton Davey. The power of Fu Manchu is far reaching as he employs a giant poisonous centipede, deadly toadstools and lethal green mists to murder and kidnap the great minds of the West. Is the beautiful Karamaneh the key to uncovering the evil Doctor's lair, or is she a pawn leading Smith and Petrie to their deaths?

"A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor." From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour. "Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up, if you please." I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands, with a cry: "Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear!" It was Nayland Smith—whom I had thought to be in Burma! "Smith," I said, and gripped his hands hard, "this is a delightful surprise! Whatever—however—" "Excuse me, Petrie!" he broke in. "Don't put it down to the sun!" And he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. I was too surprised to speak. "No doubt you will think me mad," he continued, and, dimly, I could see him at the window, peering out into the road, "but before you are many hours older you will know that I have good reason to be cautious. Ah, nothing suspicious! Perhaps I am first this time." And, stepping back to the writing-table he relighted the lamp. "Mysterious enough for you?" he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished MS. "A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly healthy—what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your way that, if sheer uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought to make you independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all the rest." I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I got out the whisky and siphon, saying: "You have taken your leave early?" "I am not on leave," he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. "I am on duty." "On duty!" I exclaimed. "What, are you moved to London or something?" "I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn't rest with me where I am to-day nor where I shall be to-morrow." There was something ominous in the words, and, putting down my glass, its contents untasted, I faced round and looked him squarely in the eyes. "Out with it!" I said. "What is it all about?" Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his left shirt-sleeve he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an inch or so around. "Ever seen one like it?" he asked. "Not exactly," I confessed. "It appears to have been deeply cauterized." "Right! Very deeply!" he rapped. "A barb steeped in the venom of a hamadryad went in there!" A shudder I could not repress ran coldly through me at mention of that most deadly of all the reptiles of the East. "There's only one treatment," he continued, rolling his sleeve down again, "and that's with a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. I lay on my back, raving, for three days afterwards, in a forest that stank with malaria, but I should have been lying there now if I had hesitated. Here's the point. It was not an accident!" "What do you mean?" "I mean that it was a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon the tracks of the man who extracted that venom—patiently, drop by drop—from the poison-glands of the snake, who prepared that arrow, and who caused it to be shot at me." "What fiend is this?" "A fiend who, unless my calculations are at fault is now in London, and who regularly wars with pleasant weapons of that kind. Petrie, I have traveled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government merely, but in the interests of the entire white race, and I honestly believe—though I pray I may be wrong—that its survival depends largely upon the success of my mission."