Fire-Tongue

Rohmer, Sax, 1883-1959Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 366K words
Chapters: 37

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Fire-Tongue by Sax RohmerAuthor: Rohmer, Sax, 1883-1959,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 1, 1998

Editor's review

Fire-Tongue comes from the pen of Sax Rohmer, a British writer of popular fiction, and belongs to the vein of Oriental conspiracy and detective adventure that runs through much of his work. Rohmer was known for creating mysterious villains and exotic atmospheres, and this book continues in that style: an apparently ordinary event leads to a secret organization, the investigator gradually goes deeper, the clues are gathered layer by layer, and suspense is maintained through pacing rather than scenes of bloodshed. As an English-language popular novel of the early twentieth century, its value lies not in literary refinement but in the tastes of mass reading in that era: the imagination of the unknown East, fear of and curiosity about secret societies, and admiration for the intellectual detective all leave their mark here. Today it can be read as an entertaining mystery, following the characters as they unravel the threads, and it is also worth reading with a critical eye, noting its stereotyped treatment of foreign cultures, which is precisely a key symptom of colonial-era popular literature. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English ebook, easy to obtain, and suitable as a small sample in the history of genre fiction; read alongside contemporary writers such as Conan Doyle and Richard Marsh, it makes the formulas and variations of popular suspense fiction clearer.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Genre readers who enjoy early detective suspense and adventure fiction
Enthusiasts of early twentieth-century British popular literature
English learners who want to expand their reading with public-domain English books
Readers interested in Orientalist narrative and colonial-era popular culture

Not a good fit for

Mystery fans seeking rigorous fair-play detective puzzles
Readers sensitive to exotic stereotyping
Readers who want a Chinese translation or annotated edition

Reading tips

Read it as genre fiction, focusing on the techniques of suspense and chapter-by-chapter resolution.
Pay attention to how Eastern elements are handled and take brief critical notes afterward.
Compare it with contemporary Sherlock Holmes stories to see differences in detective and villain portrayal.
With the English original, advance chapter by chapter and review the clues at the end of each chapter to keep the suspense coherent.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book related to the author's other works?

Fire-Tongue belongs to Rohmer's familiar vein of Oriental conspiracy and detective adventure and is stylistically consistent with his series works, but on the basis of the available information it cannot be confirmed which specific work it connects to in terms of characters. Readers can treat it as a standalone story and need not read other books first.

Is there more deduction or more adventure?

Judging from Rohmer's style, this book leans more toward suspense adventure than strict fair-play detection; the emphasis is on the threat of the secret organization and the tense pace of the investigation, rather than giving readers complete clues for a fair puzzle. Readers who enjoy puzzles may find the deductive density insufficient.

Why is it said that one should read with a critical eye?

In Rohmer's time, British popular literature often used an imagined East as a source of threat, easily producing stereotypes. Reading such works today, one can enjoy the pace of the story while also recognizing its cultural bias and understanding it in the context of the colonial era, rather than as a description of reality.

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About the author

Rohmer, Sax, 1883-1959 Author

Sax Rohmer (Rohmer, Sax, 1883-1959) was a British writer best known for creating the character Fu Manchu. Public information about the details of his life is limited, but the seventeen works held in the collection show that he was mainly active in the field of popular fiction in the first half of the twentieth century, skilled at blending suspense, horror and exotic adventure. Representative works such as The Hand of Fu-Manchu and The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu formed a series of stories around Fu Manchu, while The Golden Scorpion, Bat Wing and The Yellow Claw show his continuing interest in criminal conspiracies and mysterious incidents; titles such as Brood of the Witch-Queen and The Haunting of Low Fennel also reveal a Gothic horror flavor. His narrative pace is brisk and his plots are eerie, and he has had a certain influence on later thriller and detective writing.