Violet Books

Tales of the Grotesque Curious (Hokuseido Press, 1930) is Ryunosuke Akutagawa's rarest collection in English. His father gave him the name Ryonosuke, "Dragon Helper," becaue he was born at the hour of the dragon, on a dragon day, in the dragon month, of a dragon year. He early in life developed a love for fantasy the macabre. A typical tale from this collection is "Tobacco the Devil" in which Faust's devil journeys to Japan in company with Francis Xavier.

Rashomon Other Stories (Liveright, 1952) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is a collection of morbid weird shorts inspired somewhat by Poe Kafka. At times a medievalist like William Morris, Ryunosuke's graduation paper was a study of Morris. Two of the tales from this collection were adapted as Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon. Akutagawa is on my short-list of best authors who committed suicide.

Oo!, a darned colorful McBride dw for The Golden Scorpion (1920). This dw was provided by Lawrence Knapp who maintains The Sax Rohmer Page, where you should go to see an extensive collection of Rohmer bookcover art from many nations.

In Sax Rohmer's The Island of Fu Manchu (Cassell, 1941) "Nayland Smith, Barton Kerrigan once again hurl themselves into the titanic struggle against Fu Manchu," as the dw tells us. This is a 1947 printing in an edgeworn yet very colorful period dw showing the Haitian setting where "drums of evil are beating" from whence Voodoo devil-worship is being exported around the world while "the Yellow Doctor" perfects his latest evil invention. Yellow Black Peril rolled into one, sheesh; makes it hard for me to convince my non-white buddies there is something of merit in here.

Burt reissues of sundry authors were usually printed off the original edition plates, frequently the dustwrappers were the same too; but in this case Burt did not use the McBride artwork (shown immediately above) but came up with this entirely new lovely dw design for The Golden Scorpion. The tale stars Gaston Max in a supernatural Yellow Peril adventure, second in the series. Though not a Fu Manchu novel, the sinister yet noble Doctor does make a brief, anonymous appearance.

The Return of Doctor Fu Manchu is seen here in its Burt reissue (printed from 1918 McBride plates) baring a spectacular wrap-around jackets. This specimen has a tear out of the front panel even with that, pretty darned great. The inner flap text really got into the spirit, beginning "Imagine a man more daring than Raffles, more adroit than Arsene Lupin, more powerful than any other criminal of history or romance -- you do not fully picture the diabolical genius of Fu Manchu," a winning notice because it acknowledges that Fu Manchu is, like Lupin or Raffles, the hero of the piece. Since there can be only one hero per play, that leaves Nayland Smith as antagonist!

The Quest of the Sacred Slipper is shown here in a particularly delightful Burt dustwrapper. Initially published as individual tales in Short Story Magazine, then collected into an episodic novel, the stories involve weird murders, Assassin cult of drug-crazed fiendish dwarves, oriental Arabic magic, demon possession, magic object...one of the more "extreme" books quite fun if you're not trying to read it as a novelistic "whole."

Burt publishing gave Rohmer's Fire-tongue (1922) a simple, elegant dustwrapper depicting a dagger with its point imbedded in Rohmer's name. This is an occult detective tale with weird plant features detective Paul Harley. A virtually independent intercalated tale within the story is set in the macabre Asian City of Fire.

L(ily) Adams Beck was a Buddhist convert orientalist who wrote a number of novels tales set in Japan, Burma, China, Egypt other eastern nations. The Openers of the Gate: Stories of the Occult includes tales of westerners asiatics encountering the unknown in India Ceylon, as well as in England Lily's last home, Canada. In tone they range from mystic wonder to outright supernatural horror. Shown here is the front panel of an attractive wrap-around dw depicting a scene in the Himalayas.

Here's a little-known macabre thriller inspired by Rohmer, Herbert Metcalfe's The Amazing Dr. Khan (Manchester: Church and Foster, 1966), in a dw that is a wholehearted throwback to the pulps. Chicago occult detective Wes Cassin joins Scotland Yard's Inspector Kearns to stop Khan's blend of Eastern mysticism and modern science from establishing the Mafia in 1930s London.

Robert W. Chambers' The Maker of Moons (Putnam, 1896) was gorgeously bound in the art nouveau manner. Of these weird shorts the title novella features something of a precursor to Fu Manchu, the sorcerer Yue-Laou, leader of a diabolical cult of black magic practitioners. Despite some gruesome ideas and the repulsive yith-hounds, Chambers curiously approached the tale as a work of humor!

"Ganpat's" High Snow (Doran, 1927) is set in an unknown, mystical region of the southern Asia. Mountaineers in Tibet encounter (as the dw says) "queer customs, ancient religion, age-old monasteries, and devil-chasing Lamas" in this adventure fantasy by an author who personally knew the Himalayas. M. L. A. Comperte came by his pseudonym because Tibetans and Indians he met could not prounouce Comperte, and neither can I.