Sax Rohmer was actually born Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward on England in 1883. He was an English novelist whol is most remembers for his novels featuring Dr. Fu Manchu. Arthur's mother was an alcoholic and he received no formal education until he was about ten years old. It is believed that his father taught him how to read and he dreamed of being a writer from the time he was a young boy. He first published a short story in 1903. At that time he was also writing comedy sketches for music hall performers. It was the years 1912-1913 that brought Arthur immediate success with his Dr. Fu Manchu series and made him one of the highest paid writers of the 1920's and '30s. After World War II, Arthur and his wife moved to New York. Rohmer adopted the name Sarsfield at the age of 18, impressed by his mother's alcoholic claims of being descended from a famous 17th-century Irish general Patrick Sarsfield. He later explained that the pen name came from 'sax' which was Saxon for 'blade' and 'rohmer' which meant 'roamer'. He died in 1959 due to an outbreak of avian influenza - Asian flu.