Sax Rohmer was the pen name of the English author Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, who was born in Birmingham, England in 1883. Growing up in a working-class family, Rohmer pursued various creative avenues before becoming a novelist, including working as a poet, songwriter, and comedy sketch writer for music hall performers.
Rohmer is best known for his Fu Manchu series, which features the criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu. Prior to achieving success with his novels, Rohmer had already begun to establish himself in the literary world through the publication of his short stories and serials in magazines. His first novel, "Pause!", was published anonymously in 1910. It wasn't until 1912 that Rohmer introduced the world to Dr. Fu Manchu in "The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu," which was serialized in a magazine and became an immediate success.
Throughout his career, Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including "Brood of the Witch-Queen." Despite his success as a writer, Rohmer struggled with managing his wealth and made several disastrous business decisions that negatively impacted his career. After World War II, Rohmer and his wife moved to New York before returning to London shortly before his death in 1959.
Rohmer's Fu Manchu series consists of thirteen books, and his female variation on the character, Sumuru, appears in five books. Rohmer's wife, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer, also published her own mystery novel, "Bianca in Black," in 1954 under the pen name Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. In 1972, she and her husband's former assistant, Cay Van Ash, wrote a biography of Rohmer titled "Master of Villainy."