Sax Rohmer was the pseudonym used by the well known English author of the mid 20th century named Sir Arthur Sarsfield Ward. He was born on February 15, 1883 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom, and died on June 01, 1959. Rohmer also used to write some of his novels under another pen name Michael Furey. Most of the novels written by author Rohmer were based on the mystery & thriller, science fiction, and fantasy genres. He was considered as one of the prolific authors of England of his time mainly because of his highly interesting and successful novels. His readers and fans best remember him for the novel series featuring the criminal, Dr. Fu Manchu. Rohmer was born in a working class family in Birmingham and initially began working as a civil servant before going on to take up writing novels as a full time career. Throughout his life, he has worked as a songwriter, poet, and a sketch writer of comedy in the Music Hall, before undertaking the pseudonym and pursue a writing career full of novels based on weird fiction. In the middle of his successful writing career, Rohmer claimed a membership of the Hermetic Order as well as the Rosicrucians. One of his best friends and a physician, Dr. R. Watson Councell was his legitimate connections with these organizations. Some of the writers believe that Rohmer had exaggerated about his connections to these prestigious organizations in order to boost his reputation as a noteworthy writer.
Author Rohmer began his writing career in the year 1903 with the publication of his first writing work, The Mysterious Mummy. Gradually, he transitioned from writing for the Music Hall performers and concentrated on writing short stories for the magazine publications. Later in the year 1909, he got married to Rose Elizabeth Knox. Over the period of the next couple of decades, Rohmer became one of the highest paid and most successful authors because of the huge success of all of his conventional detective novel series. Besides the detective series, Rohmer also wrote a few novels based on supernatural horror. Initially, he seemed very poor at trying to manage his wealth and made some very disastrous decisions that cost him a lot of money throughout his career. Finally, he was able to gain some financial success when he wrote the novels based on the female version of Fu Manchu named Sumuru. Shortly after the Second World War, Rohmer shifted to New York and after living for a few years over there, he returned back to London just before his death in the year 1959. He had died due to influenza. Author Sax Rohmer’s wife, Rose Elizabeth Knox is also an author and has published her own novel based on the mystery genre. She used the pseudonym Elizabeth Sax Rohmer, for writing the novel titled ‘Bianca in Black’ in the year 1954. She also wrote the biography of author Master of Villainy, in collaboration with the former assistant of her husband, named Cay Van Ash, which was published in the year 1972. In some editions of her books, Elizabeth Knox is mistakenly credited as the daughter of author Rohmer.
Throughout his writing career, author Rohmer has written a number of successful novel series, one of which is the Gaston Max series. This series consists of a total of 4 books published between the years 1915 and 1943. All the novels of this feature the main character in the form of Gaston Max, who is described as a Parisian criminal investigator as well as a disguising master. Throughout the series, Gaston battles with the mastermind criminal named Mr. King. The first novel of the series was titled ‘The Yellow Claw’ and was published in the year 1915 by the Borgo Press publishing house. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Mr. King is introduced as an elusive and mastermind criminal of the Oriental group. He plans out a mastermind plot in order to gain control of all the wealth of London. With the intention of successfully carrying out his mastermind plan, he gets one of the socialites killed through his henchmen and threatens the rest of them with dire consequences. However, he seems to be on the trail of two of the most daring and the bravest detectives of the London police, Inspector Dunbar and Detective Gaston Max. The two detectives undertake the dangerous case that threatens the existence of the British society. Mr. King will not think twice before destroying the whole of England with the help of his mastermind, if he faced any threat from Gaston Maxa and Dunbar.
The second novel of the Gaston Max series written by author Sax Rohmer was published under the titled ‘The Golden Scorpion’. It was released by the Echo Library publishing house in the year 1919. The plot of this novel continues to deal with the main character of the series, Gaston Max, and his frequent battles with the mastermind villain of the series, Mr. King. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, it is shown that 4 brilliant and important die mysteriously in the city and the only clue that links all the four deaths, besides having nothing in common, is the golden scorpion’s carved tail, which is found lying beside each of the dead bodies. Soon, the police comes to know that all the 4 men have been killed by the same man, who seems to horrify the others with this act. He calls himself as The Scorpion and clearly seems to be very dangerous and cunning. In order to stop The Scorpion from causing further troubles and taking the life of the fifth victim, the finest of the detectives from England and France come together and join forces with each other. But, the twisting trail of the mastermind criminal takes them to through the haunting underworld of London as well as through the dangerous opium dens of the Chinatown. Finally, the detective forces find themselves in the Lair of the Scorpion and need to carry out a perfect strategy to capture him. If they fail to stop The Scorpion from carrying out his criminal activities, he is going to cause a lot of harm to the city. Also, the lives of the numerous detectives who have reached in his lair, seems to be at his mercy. Now, the higher officials of the city are required to talk him through in order to avoid a major loss in terms of men and money.
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