Daughter of Fu Manchu. Leather spine with cloth boards - 1931

Brown leather spine with gilt title. Brown cloth boards. Lacks dust cover but otherwise a very fine book Dr. Fu Manchu is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years, and he has also become an archetype of the evil criminal genius and mad scientist, while lending his name to the Fu Manchu moustache. Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu After penning Little Tich in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the music hall entertainer of the same name) he wrote the first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, first published in a serialisation from October 1912 to June 1913. It was an immediate success, with its story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the supposed worldwide conspiracy of the "Yellow Peril". The Fu Manchu stories, together with his more conventional detective series characters—Paul Harley, Gaston Max, Red Kerry, Morris Klaw (an occult detective), and the Crime Magnet—made Rohmer one of the most successful and financially successful authors of the 1920s and 1930s. The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years between 1913 and 1917; but it was not until 1931 (some 14 years after the third book in the series) that Rohmer returned to the series with Daughter of Fu Manchu. The reason for the long interval was that Rohmer wanted to be rid of the series after The Si-Fan Mysteries. The first three books had been successfully filmed by Stoll in the twenties as a pair of serials. Rohmer's first effort at reviving the Fu Manchu property was ultimately reworked as The Emperor of America. The original intent had been for the head of the organisation to be Fu Manchu's daughter. He 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. He would later return to Drake Roscoe and his female supervillain for the Sumuru series. In the meantime, he tried again to focus his energies on what was first titled Fu Manchu's Daughter for Colliers in 1930, but with an older (now knighted) Denis Nayland Smith as the protagonist once more. The results were infinitely better and jump-started the series in the process. In the 28 years from 1931 to 1959, Rohmer added a further 10 books to the Fu Manchu series, meaning the series totals 13 books in all (not counting the posthumous short story collection The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories). The Fu Manchu series was criticised by the Chinese government and Chinese communities in the U.S. for what was perceived as negative ethnic stereotyping. Sociologist Virginia Berridge has stated that 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. Critic Jack Adrian has written "Rohmer's own racism was careless and casual, a mere symptom of his times" Colin Watson commented "So vehement and repetitive were Sax Rohmer's references to Asiatic plotting against white civilisation that they cannot be explained simply as the frills of melodramatic narration".