It cost 3/6 originally. published by Consul books who were a off shoot of World distributors (I think). The cover design, front and back, were specifically designed to help it compete with other less garishly jacketed paperbacks on a paperback spinner or newsagent shelf. How to lure the casual buyer away from the equally supernatural faux erotica of a Dennis Wheatly. Discussed by a smoking jacketed pipe smoking head of design, over a swirling bowl of brandy...er,probably.
The worn and well thumbed paperback had an interior stamp proclaiming its exchange value from the the old Union Street bookshop. Also now long gone.
The book itself and its contents are also perhaps redolent of another former world now passed away with the smoky vision of so many Chinese immigrants were viewed through the prism of a faux-Orientalism. With the invention of a labyrinthine warren of Victorian tenements masking an underground of Opium dens and sinister cellars sheltering the wicked Doctor's latest inventions for taking down the decadent West. The work of Sax Rohmer undoubtedly influenced this impression to a world wide degree as the work traveled well, thrilling, exciting and terrifying generations, as well as misleading the readers into believing in a London based Gotham called Limehouse. From the books, to the series of films starring Christopher Lee, the pulp magazines, the comic books and radio plays, traversing all mediums, reinforcing the stereotype, a single street mythically hyped as something else.
Mind you, for lovers of lurid pulp adventure this is a real page turner. Its depiction of a fog bound London and the colourful motley of heroes making an almost jingoistic stand against the evil Doctor and his complex machinations makes for a thrilling ride. It feels as though Sax Rohmer is a be-goggled leather jacketed motor cyclist and the reader is in the attached side car holding on for dear life as the vechile roars round the sinister bends in the road. The schemes of Fu Manchu do not only generally involve a high body count but have a notably twisted quality to them. As though he were saying "Why only kill them when you can be so much more cruel to insert them into some personal hell of their own devising." yet he employs a code, one that only Fu Manchu appreciates, as he wills so mote it be. As they say...
Each of the old movies with Christopher Lee would end with the chilling promise " The world will hear from me again." I think in this instance it may well be about to do so again. In the original marvel comics Shang Chi Master Of Kung Fu his father is Fu Manchu. Now I am not sure of the details but I think Marvel Comics were discouraged from using the character by the Rohmer Estate, or for whatever reason, whoever owned the rights to the character, but with a big budget Master Of Kung Fu movie on the horizon perhaps we will hear from him again. Maybe not using the same name but opium by any other name would smell as sweet, so to speak.
