open
Upgrade to a better browser, please.

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Authors

Sax Rohmer

Added By: Engelbrecht
Last Updated: Engelbrecht


Sax Rohmer

Search for this author through IndieBound.org Search for this author on Amazon.com Search for this author on Amazon.co.uk
Full Name: Arthur Henry Ward
Born: February 15, 1883
Birmingham, England
Died: June 1, 1959
White Plains, New York, USA
Occupation: Novelist
Nationality: British
Links:



Biography

Arthur Henry Ward, 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 weird 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 organisations.

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.


Works in the WWEnd Database

 Non Series Works

 (1918)