Editing Fu Manchu (section)

== Background and publication ==
According to his own account, Sax Rohmer decided to start the Dr. Fu Manchu series after his [[Ouija]] board spelled out [[Chinaman|C-H-I-N-A-M-A-N]] when he asked what would make his fortune.<ref name="Barker" /> Clive Bloom argues that the portrait of Fu Manchu was based on the popular music hall magician [[Chung Ling Soo]], "a white man in costume who had shaved off his Victorian moustache and donned a Mandarin costume and pigtail".<ref>{{cite book|last=Bloom|first=Clive |title="West is East" in Cult Fiction: Popular Reading and Pulp Theory |publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1996 |pages=44 |isbn=9780571254033}}</ref> As for Rohmer's theories concerning "Eastern devilry" and "the unemotional cruelty of the Chinese",<ref>''[[The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu]]'', ch. 7, 10</ref> he seeks to give them intellectual credentials by referring to the travel writing of [[Bayard Taylor]].<ref>''[[The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu]]'', ch. 19</ref> Taylor was a would-be ethnographer who, though unversed in Chinese language and culture, used the pseudo-science of [[physiognomy]] to find in the Chinese race "deeps on deeps of depravity so shocking and horrible, that their character cannot even be hinted".<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.gutenberg-e.org/haj01/frames/fhaj09.html |title= The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture, 1776-1876|last= Haddad|first= John Rogers |date= 2008|via= Project Gutenberg|publisher= Columbia University Press|access-date= 30 July 2021}}</ref> Rohmer's protagonists treat him as an authority.

Fu Manchu first appeared in Rohmer's short story "The Zayat Kiss" (1912).<ref name="history"/> It and nine further stories were later collected into the 1913 novel ''[[The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu]]''.<ref name="history"/> Two more series were collected into ''The Devil Doctor'' (1916) and ''The Si-Fan Mysteries'' (1917), before the character entered a 14-year absence.<ref name="history"/> Following 1931's ''The Daughter of Fu-Manchu'', Rohmer wrote nine more Fu Manchu novels before his death in 1959.<ref name="history"/> Four previously published stories were posthumously collected into ''The Wrath of Fu-Manchu'' (1973).<ref name="history"/> In total, Rohmer wrote 14 novels concerning the character.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rovin|first=Jeff|author-link=Jeff Rovin|title=The Encyclopedia of Supervillains|publisher=Facts on File|date=1987|location=New York|isbn= 0-8160-1356-X|pages=93–94}}</ref> The image of "Orientals" invading Western nations became the foundation of Rohmer's commercial success, being able to sell 20 million copies in his lifetime.<ref name="Seshagiri 2006 162–194">{{Cite journal|last=Seshagiri|first=Urmila|date=2006|title=Modernity's (Yellow) Perils: Dr. Fu-Manchu and English Race Paranoia|jstor=4489239|journal=Cultural Critique|volume=62|issue=62|pages=162–194|doi=10.1353/cul.2006.0010|s2cid=143720341 }}</ref>