18 Facts About Sax Rohmer

Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist.

Sax Rohmer is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Fu Manchu.

Sax Rohmer worked as a poet, songwriter and comedy sketch writer for music hall performers before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing fiction.

Sax Rohmer claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned.

Sax Rohmer's first published work was issued in 1903, when the short story "The Mysterious Mummy" was sold to Pearson's Weekly.

Sax Rohmer gradually transitioned from writing for music hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication.

In 1934, Sax Rohmer moved into a newly refurbished house, Little Gatton in Gatton Road, Reigate, Surrey, where he lived until 1946.

Sax Rohmer died after succumbing to Asian flu in 1959.

The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years between 1913 and 1917; but it was not until 1931 that Sax Rohmer returned to the series with Daughter of Fu Manchu.

The reason for the long interval was that Sax Rohmer wanted to be rid of the series after The Si-Fan Mysteries.

Sax Rohmer kept Head Centre as a female criminal mastermind to combat Drake Roscoe, but was very unhappy with the book both as it started and in its finished form.

Sociologist Virginia Berridge has stated that Sax Rohmer created a false image of London's Chinese community as crime-ridden, further claiming that the Limehouse Chinese were one of the most law-abiding of London's ethnic minorities.

Sax Rohmer became a friend of escapologist Harry Houdini, who wrote to him in praise of Sax Rohmer's The Romance of Sorcery.

Sax Rohmer wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen, described by Adrian as "Sax Rohmer's masterpiece".

Sax Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career.

Sax Rohmer's work was banned in Nazi Germany, causing Sax Rohmer to complain that he could not understand such censorship, stating "my stories are not inimical to Nazi ideals".

Sax Rohmer died in 1959 at the age of 76, due to an outbreak of "Asian flu".

Sax Rohmer's wife, Rose Elizabeth Ward, published her own mystery novel, Bianca in Black, in 1958 under the pen name Elizabeth Sax Rohmer.