# Is "The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu" by Sax Rohmer a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1913) is identified by: First edition, first impression: issued by Methuen in June 1913 (recorded by dealers as 26 June 1913), 308 pages, bound in original red cloth stamped and lettered in gilt on the upper board and spine. True first is the UK edition: Methuen & Co., London, June 1913, under the title 'The Mystery of Dr.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: issued by Methuen in June 1913 (recorded by dealers as 26 June 1913), 308 pages, bound in original red cloth stamped and lettered in gilt on the upper board and spine
- The terminal publisher's material is the working point: the first impression carries 8 pages of publisher's advertisements dated Spring 1913 and a 32-page publisher's catalogue dated May 1913 bound in at the rear
- Dealer descriptions are not unanimous on the terminal matter — at least one catalogues a copy with a rear catalogue dated July 1912 — so treat the advertisement/catalogue dating as corroborative rather than absolute, and check it together with the 1913 title-page date and the absence of any later impression statement on the verso
- Beware the Methuen colonial issue, which is dated 1913 and offered by some sellers as a first edition but was printed for the colonial market and is not the first English impression
- Publisher imprint reads Methuen & Co. Ltd
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Sax Rohmer |
| Publisher | Methuen & Co. Ltd |
| Year | 1913 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: issued by Methuen in June 1913 (recorded by dealers as 26 June 1913), 308 pages, bound in original red… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: issued by Methuen in June 1913 (recorded by dealers as 26 June 1913), 308 pages, bound in original red cloth stamped and lettered in gilt on the upper board and spine. The terminal publisher's material is the working point: the first impression carries 8 pages of publisher's advertisements dated Spring 1913 and a 32-page publisher's catalogue dated May 1913 bound in at the rear. Dealer descriptions are not unanimous on the terminal matter — at least one catalogues a copy with a rear catalogue dated July 1912 — so treat the advertisement/catalogue dating as corroborative rather than absolute, and check it together with the 1913 title-page date and the absence of any later impression statement on the verso. Beware the Methuen colonial issue, which is dated 1913 and offered by some sellers as a first edition but was printed for the colonial market and is not the first English impression.

## Is this the true first?
True first is the UK edition: Methuen & Co., London, June 1913, under the title 'The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu', collecting stories serialised from October 1912 to June 1913. Both editions are collected. The first American edition is McBride, Nast & Company, New York, 1913, retitled 'The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu' and published several months later (recorded variously as September and October 1913) — so the retitling, not a date statement, is the fastest way to tell the two apart. Some secondary accounts name Cassell as the first book publisher; that appears to be a conflation with the Cassell magazine in which the stories were serialised, and no dealer or catalogue record supports a Cassell first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1913 printings. The reprint field is dense: Methuen reissued the title continuously into the 1930s in red cloth closely resembling the first, and those later impressions are identified by the impression statement on the title-page verso and by later-dated or absent terminal advertisements. The Methuen colonial issue and the later Dover and other paperback reprints of the American 'Insidious' text are the other common substitutes.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu* by Sax Rohmer a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-mystery-of-dr-fu-manchu
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.