Thomas Harris

Harris's novels have sold more than 50 million copies, with The Silence of the Lambs selling 10 million copies as of 2019.

Thomas Harris studied at Baylor University. The recorded working language is English. Works named in the authority record are Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. Distinctions recorded are Anthony Award for Best Novel, Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, Bram Stoker Award for Novel and Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Harris was born in Jackson, Tennessee, but moved as a child with his family to Rich, Mississippi. He was introverted and bookish in grade school and then blossomed in high school. He attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he majored in English and graduated in 1964. While in college, he worked as a reporter for the local newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald, covering the police beat. In 1968, he moved to New York City to work for the Associated Press until 1974 when he began work on his debut novel, Black Sunday.

Harris avoids publicity and participated in few interviews between 1976 and 2019. At Baylor University, he met fellow student Harriet Anne Haley and they married in June 1961. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Anne, and divorced in August 1968. Harris remained close to his mother, Polly, and called her every night no matter where he was. He often discussed particular scenes from his novels with her. Polly died on December 31, 2011. As of 1991, Harris lived in South Florida and had a summer home in Sag Harbor, New York. His partner as of 1999 was Pace Barnes, who, according to USA Today, worked in publishing and "is as outgoing as he is quiet". Harris' friend and literary agent Morton Janklow described him as "wonderfully jovial" and a passionate chef, with "a courtliness you associate with the South". In his first major interview in 43 years, with The New York Times in 2019 to promote Cari Mora, Harris said he was a nature lover, and a long-time visitor and volunteer of the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, an animal rescue center in Miami, Florida, for 20 years. The staff were not aware of Harris's fame until a few years before the 2019 interview. He described fame as "more of a nuisance than anything else".

• Black Sunday (1975) • Cari Mora (2019)

• Red Dragon (1981) • The Silence of the Lambs (1988) • Hannibal (1999) • Hannibal Rising (2006; prequel)

• Hannibal Rising (2007)

* * * • Dunning, John. Booked to Die. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. * * • Sexton, David. The Strange World of Thomas Harris. London: Short Books, 2001. *