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Informationen zum Autor Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883 - 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu. Born in Birmingham to a working-class family, Arthur Ward initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time. He 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. Like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, Rohmer claimed membership to one of the factions of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Rohmer also claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned. His doctor and family friend Dr R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organizations. His first published work came in 1903, when the short story "The Mysterious Mummy" was sold to Pearson's Weekly. Rohmer's main literary influences seem to have been Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and M. P. Shiel. He gradually transitioned from writing for music hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication. In 1909 he married Rose Elizabeth Knox. He published his first book Pause! anonymously in 1910.
About the author
Sax Rohmer was a British writer of songs skits, plays and novels. Rohmer was born in Birmingham to Irish immigrants, and the family relocated to London in 1886, where he attended school. His official schooling was completed in 1901, following the death of his alcoholic mother. After pursuing jobs in the civil service, finance, journalism, and gas, Rohmer began writing comedy songs, monologues, and sketches for music hall singers such as Little Tich and George Robey. Rohmer's first book was Pause! a collection of drawings created by Robey and written by Rohmer, which was published anonymously in 1910; his second book was the ghost-written biography of Little Tich, which was published under Tich's real name, Harry Relph. Fu Manchu is the character with whom Rohmer "remains most strongly identified," and his biographer Will Murray describes him as one of the literary characters who "has achieved universal acceptance and popularity which will not be forgotten," with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Dracula. Rohmer produced five books beginning in 1951 with Sumuru as the principal antagonist; she was a female counterpart to Fu Manchu, and her writings were very popular and lucrative.
