Thomas Harris

A collection of signed, first edition Hannibal Lecter series books.

• Sold as a set of 4 volumes.
• Thomas Harris (American).
• Includes the following titles: Ed Dragon, The Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising.
• New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons/ St. Martin's Press/ Delacorte Press, 1981 - 2006. 
• Octavo.
• Signed flat by Thomas Harris on title pages of all volumes.
• Volume 1 has a scarlet red spine with age-toned yellow-white lettering.
• Volume 2 has a black spine with white lettering.
• Volumes 3 and 4 have black spines gilted lettering.
• Dust jackets are wrapped in protective mylar coverings.

Thomas Harris was born on September 22, 1940 in Jackson, Tennessee, moving to Rich, Mississippi as a young child. Harris would graduate college in 1964, becoming a reporter for the local newspaper in Waco, Texas where he covered the police beat. Harris would move to New York City in 1968, and left his job there at the Associated Press to begin work on his debut novel Black Sunday. After Black Sunday's moderate success, Harris would begin work on his second novel; Red Dragon. Research for this novel lasted throughout the 1970's during which Harris attended classes and spoke with agents of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. When his father became terminally ill, Harris remained in a rural house for 18 months which helped him visualize his killer characters. Red Dragon would be the first depiction of the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer psychologist, who would become a mainstay in many of Harris' books, tying them together. Red Dragon saw much more success than Black Sunday, Stephen King naming it the "best popular novel to be published in America since The Godfather". It's critical success would inspire a sequel in 1988, Silence of the Lambs. Silence of the Lambs is by far Harris' most successful novel and best known installment in the series, selling over 10 million copies and spawning one of the great American horror films, which earned "the Big Five" Academy Awards in 1991. While Red Dragon followed a hardened FBI investigator, Silence of the Lambs follows trainee Clarice Starling as she pursues the serial killer "Buffalo Bill" who turns to Dr. Hannibal Lecter for help in the case. Hannibal would release to success, spawning a film adaptation in 2001 and was initially intended to be the final entry in the series. However, Harris would release a prequel to the series, Hannibal Rising, which depicts Lecter's origins. This final novel would release to middling reviews, and it was later revealed that Harris wrote the novel under duress as he was threatened with losing the rights to Hannibal Lecter as a character if he didn't.