The Amazon alert I received yesterday is titled “Sax Rohmer’s New Book.”
Rohmer died in 1959. The book in question is The Mystery of Fu Manchu, which will be reissued in a couple of weeks by Titan Books as a ten-dollar paperback, or via Kindle for $6.39.
The Mystery of Fu Manchu is already available on Kindle for a buck and a half, within the 615-page Fu Manchu Omnibus 1, which also includes the other two volumes of the initial Fu-Manchu trilogy: The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu and The Hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Under its American title, The Insidious Fu Manchu, there are several Kindle editions available for free.
The Titan edition’s distinction will be “a special feature by Leslie S. Klinger.” Klinger’s cool. He’s a trusted authority on both Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, and edited the new annotated edition of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics (a 560-page hardcover).
Context is everything with Fu-Manchu, and Klinger can provide it. The novels are unconscionably racist, appealing to a readership to which “inscrutable” was a better adjective than “mysterious” when describing an “oriental” villain with evil powers and world-conquering intentions. Yet these books are cornerstones of 20th century adventure fiction. Offensive, undoubtedly, but from an era which boasted no end of things which offend modern sensibilities. Up to you whether you need a new $6 preface to tell you that.