Ten Years Beyond Baker Street

1984 Ten Years Beyond Baker Street. Cay
     Van Ash. New York: Harper and Row
     Publishers.

Jacket illustration: Peter Schein

 

"for
OKCHON,
who thinks there are just not enough
Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu
stories"

Okchon was Cay Van Ash's wife,
-- and she was right.

Ten Years Beyond Baker Street  Van Ash's first Fu Manchu novel. It was followed by The Fires of Fu Manchu in 1987. A third novel, set in Paris, was planned but never realized due to his death in 1994.

1985 Ten Years Beyond Baker Street. Cay Van Ash. London: Futura Publications. 436 pp.

This unusual cover is an accurate scan. It is meant to look like a blue and yellow cover on a red background. Even the Futura name and logo in the upper left corner are skewed to help the illusion. 

Artist: unknown.

This edition was brought to my attention and contributed by Brian Henry Benneworth.

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1988 Ten Years Beyond Baker Street. Cay
     Van Ash. New York: Perennial Library
     P947, 436 pp.

 

Cover design and illustration: Kang Yi

 

1989. Cay Van Ash. Sherlock Holmes  contra Fu Manchu. [Ten Years Beyond Baker Street] Spain: Editorial Planeta.

Span-ten.jpg (21047 bytes)
Bill Maynard found that the title of Cay van Ash's unfinished third novel was The Seal of Fu Manchu.  This was found in an interview Van Ash did with Andy Lane for Million magazine in 1991. Sadly, The Society of Authors retained no information on the novel in their records (other than the fact that he was licensed to do a third novel and that it was never completed). The setting was to be Paris.

 

  

Cay Van Ash was a close friend of Sax and Elizabeth Rohmer. He and Elizabeth wrote Sax Rohmer's biography, Master of Villainy. He was also a frequent contributor to The Rohmer Review. Born in Sussex, England, he lived for a time in London before moving to Japan where he lived for nearly thirty years. He taught at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Once it was decided that the Rohmers would remain in America, it fell to Cay Van Ash to ship their better furniture in storage in England. In doing so he noted "I personally inherited the unique, mosaic-shaded lamp which had stood on Sax's writing desk during our first meeting, and lugged it proudly around the world ever afterwards." (Master of Villainy 277)

Copyright © 1998-2004 Lawrence Knapp. All rights reserved.

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