Sax Rohmer's Morris Claw | Vault Of Evil: Brit Horror Pulp Plus!

ripper
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Sax Rohmer's Morris Claw Jan 31, 2013 9:09:08 GMT

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Post by ripper on Jan 31, 2013 9:09:08 GMT

I purchased an e-book some time ago containing a number of tales of psychic/occult detectives. One of the stories was by Sax Rohmer and featured his psychic detective, Morris Claw, in a tale entitled The Headless Mummies. It concerns the investigation by Claw and his exotically beautiful daughter, Isis, into the decapitation of a number of egyptian mummies in various museum collections plus one actually in the possession of Claw himself. I enjoyed the story very much, which I believe was taken from Rohmer's Claw collection The Dream Detective (1920). I don't know if the stories in the collection were originally published in magazines. Has anyone come across any more of the Morris Claw tales? I have looked online but have failed to find any others.

dem bones
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Sax Rohmer's Morris Claw Feb 2, 2013 18:03:27 GMT

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Post by dem bones on Feb 2, 2013 18:03:27 GMT

Plenty of free Sax Rohmer downloads on Feedbooks, Rip, but as yet no Dream Detectives. Peter Haining included Klaw's adventure The Case of the Haunting of Grange in Supernatural Sleuths, but as to any of the rest ....

And wasn't somebody after David Lindsay's A Voyage To Articus?

From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty. - Christine Campbell Thomson

ripper
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Sax Rohmer's Morris Claw Feb 3, 2013 13:24:59 GMT

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Post by ripper on Feb 3, 2013 13:24:59 GMT

Thanks for the link to Feedbook, Dem. I wasn't aware of that site so I will check it out :-). I was hoping that The Dream Detective would be in the public domain like some other early Rohmer titles are, but perhaps it isn't as I haven't found any trace of it on any of the usual pd sites. Nice to see that Peter Haining included a Morris Claw story in his Supernatural Sleuths anthology.

helrunar
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Sax Rohmer's Morris Claw Dec 28, 2022 15:29:16 GMT

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Post by helrunar on Dec 28, 2022 15:29:16 GMT

This is a scan of the complete book The Dream Detective. The stories are a lot of fun. One of the peculiar traits of Moris Klaw is that he regularly sprays his forehead with verbena, something I'd never heard of. But I have a co-worker who kept this bottle of some kind of tincture-spray and she would periodically spritz herself with it. A curious thing since she is quite sensitive to scents of all descriptions. Human character truly is the final frontier of the weird and uncanny.

archive.org/details/dreamdetectivebe00rohm/mode/2up

Pyramid Books in the US did a very nice reprint of this in 1966 and it's available in various other editions fairly reasonably through various vendors. Or if you have the luck of James Doig perhaps you will find a copy at a car boot sale.

cheers, Hel.