"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race . . . and you will have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man." This is how mystery writer Sax Rohmer introduced the villain to readers in his first novel featuring the character. The shadowy, sinister Fu Manchu is one of the best known villains of Western literature. More than just an evil outlaw, the Fu Manchu character embodied the racism and fear of foreigners that was all too common in Western culture a century ago.

Fu Manchu was the creation of Sax Rohmer, the pen name of British writer Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1886–1959). His first accounts of Fu Manchu...