The Mask of Fu-Manchu
Read The Mask of Fu-Manchu Online
Authors: Sax Rohmer
“Without Fu-Manchu we wouldn’t have Dr. No, Doctor Doom or Dr. Evil. Sax Rohmer created the first truly great evil mastermind. Devious, inventive, complex, and fascinating. These novels inspired a century of great thrillers!”
Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Assassin’s Code
and
Patient Zero
“The true king of the pulp mystery is Sax Rohmer—and the shining ruby in his crown is without a doubt his Fu-Manchu stories.”
James Rollins,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Devil Colony
“Fu-Manchu remains the definitive diabolical mastermind of the 20th Century. Though the arch-villain is ‘the Yellow Peril incarnate,’ Rohmer shows an interest in other cultures and allows his protagonist a complex set of motivations and a code of honor which often make him seem a better man than his Western antagonists. At their best, these books are very superior pulp fiction… at their worst, they’re still gruesomely readable.”
Kim Newman, award-winning author of
Anno Dracula
“Sax Rohmer is one of the great thriller writers of all time! Rohmer created in Fu-Manchu the model for the super-villains of James Bond, and his hero Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are worthy stand-ins for Holmes and Watson… though Fu-Manchu makes Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever.”
Max Allan Collins,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Road to Perdition
“I grew up reading Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu novels, in cheap paperback editions with appropriately lurid covers. They completely entranced me with their vision of a world constantly simmering with intrigue and wildly overheated ambitions. Even without all the exotic detail supplied by Rohmer’s imagination, I knew full well that world wasn’t the same as the one I lived in… For that alone, I’m grateful for all the hours I spent chasing around with Nayland Smith and his stalwart associates, though really my heart was always on their intimidating opponent’s side.”
K. W. Jeter, acclaimed author of
Infernal Devices
“A sterling example of the classic adventure story, full of excitement and intrigue. Fu-Manchu is up there with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Zorro—or more precisely with Professor Moriarty, Captain Nemo, Darth Vader, and Lex Luthor—in the imaginations of generations of readers and moviegoers.”
Charles Ardai, award-winning novelist and founder of Hard Case Crime
“I love Fu-Manchu, the way you can only love the really GREAT villains. Though I read these books years ago he is still with me, living somewhere deep down in my guts, between Professor Moriarty and Dracula, plotting some wonderfully hideous revenge against an unsuspecting mankind.”
Mike Mignola, creator of
Hellboy
“Fu-Manchu is one of the great villains in pop culture history, insidious and brilliant. Discover him if you dare!”
Christopher Golden,
New York Times
bestselling co-author of
Baltimore: The Plague Ships
THE COMPLETE FU-MANCHU SERIES
BY SAX ROHMER
Available now from Titan Books:
THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE HAND OF DR. FU-MANCHU
DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU
Coming soon from Titan Books:
THE BRIDE OF FU-MANCHU
THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU
PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU
THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU
THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU
THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU
RE-ENTER FU-MANCHU
EMPEROR FU-MANCHU
THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU
MASK
OF
FU-MANCHU
SAX ROHMER
TITAN BOOKS
THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU
Print edition ISBN: 9780857686077
E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686732
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: March 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First published as a novel in the UK by Cassell and Co. Ltd, 1933
First published as a novel in the US by Doubleday, Doran, 1932
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © 2013 The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors
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Frontispiece illustration: a movie theater premium based on a design by W. T. Benda, acclaimed mask maker from the early twentieth century, and illustrator of the cover for the May 7, 1932 issue of
Collier’s
magazine. Special thanks to Dr. Lawrence Knapp for the illustration from “The Page of Fu Manchu,”
http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/FuFrames.htm
.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Chapter One: One Night in Ispahan
Chapter Two: Wailing in the Air
Chapter Four: The Veiled Prophet
Chapter Five: Nayland Smith Takes Charge
Chapter Six: Perfume Of Mimosa
Chapter Nine: The Flying Death
Chapter Eleven: The Man on the Minaret
Chapter Twelve: In the Ghost Mosque
Chapter Thirteen: The Black Shadow
Chapter Fourteen: Road to Cairo
Chapter Fifteen: Road to Cairo (Continued)
Chapter Sixteen: A Masked Woman
Chapter Seventeen: The Mosque of Muayyad
Chapter Eighteen: Dr. Fu-Manchu
Chapter Nineteen: Formula Elixir Vitae
Chapter Twenty: The Master Mind
Chapter Twenty-One: “He Will be Crowned in Damascus”
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Hand of Fu-Manchu
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Messenger
Chapter Twenty-Five: Mr. Aden’s Proposal
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Strange Rendezvous
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Great Pyramid
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Inside the Great Pyramid
Chapter Twenty-Nine: We Enter the King’s Chamber
Chapter Thirty: Dr. Fu-Manchu Keeps His Word
Chapter Thirty-One: The Trap is Laid
Chapter Thirty-Two: I See El Mokanna
Chapter Thirty-Three: Facts and Rumours
Chapter Thirty-Four: Rima’s Story
Chapter Thirty-Five: Ordered Home
Chapter Thirty-Six: Nayland Smith Comes Aboard
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Relics of the Prophet
Chapter Thirty-Eight: “The Sword of God”
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Flight from Egypt
Chapter Forty-One: A Rubber Ball
Chapter Forty-Two: The Purser’s Safe
Chapter Forty-Three: The Voice in Bruton Street
Chapter Forty-Four: “This Was the Only Way…”
Chapter Forty-Five: Memory Returns
Chapter Forty-Six: Fah Lo Suee
Chapter Forty-Seven: Ivory Hands
Chapter Forty-Eight: I Really Awaken
Chapter Forty-Nine: A Committee of Experts
Chapter Fifty: Dr. Fu-Manchu Triumphs
Chapter Fifty-One: Wedding Morning
Chapter Fifty-Two: Dr. Fu-Manchu Bows
This cardboard mask, handed out by theaters to promote the 1932 movie
The Mask of Fu Manchu
(starring Boris Karloff), was based on a design by artist W. T. Benda for the Rohmer serialization in
Collier’s
magazine.
“S
han! Shan!”
Someone calling my name persistently. The voice was faint. I had been asleep, but dreaming hard, an evil from which ordinarily I don’t suffer. The voice fitted into my dream uncannily…
I had dreamed I was asleep in my tent in that desolate spot on the Khorassan border, not a hundred yards from the valley called the Place of the Great Magician. No expedition of Sir Lionel’s in which I had been employed had so completely got on my nerves as this one.
Persia was new territory for me. And the chief’s sense of the dramatic, his innate showmanship (a trait which had done him endless damage in the eyes of the learned societies) had resulted in my being more or less in the dark as to the real object of our journey.