WRITER

Thomas Harris

1940 - Today

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Icon of person Thomas Harris

William Thomas Harris III (born September 22, 1940) is an American writer. He is the author of a series of suspense novels about Hannibal Lecter. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Thomas Harris has received more than 2,447,778 page views. His biography is available in 34 different languages on Wikipedia. Thomas Harris is the 764th most popular writer (down from 640th in 2019), the 864th most popular biography from United States (down from 699th in 2019) and the 80th most popular American Writer.

Thomas Harris is most famous for his 1988 novel, "The Silence of the Lambs," which was later made into a film starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.4M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 63.60

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 34

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 6.94

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.92

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The Silence of the Lambs
lambs, black witch moth, autopsy
Thomas Harris will seize you with an emotion more profound than terror. Of his previous novel, Stephen King wrote, "The book simply comes at you and comes at you, finally leaving you shaken and sober and afraid on a deeper level than simple 'thrills' alone furnish." Harris' new book is his most powerful and provocative, a novel with an impact unlike any other. The time is now. A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname - Buffalo Bill - is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murders could help track and capture Buffalo Bill. Smart and attractive, Starling is shaken to find herself in a strange, intense relationship with the acutely perceptive Lecter. His cryptic clues - about Buffalo Bill and about her - launch Clarice on a search that every reader will find starling, harrowing, and totally compelling. The Silence of the Lambs is an ingenious, masterfully written novel that will be the most talked-about best-seller of the year.
Elder Conklin and Other Stories
Black Sunday
Fiction, Super Bowl in fiction, Super Bowl
When the game begins in New Orleans this Super Bowl Sunday . . . 80,000 people had better get ready to die. The Super Bowl--where thousands have gathered for an all-American tradition. Suddenly it's the most terrifying place on earth . . . Michael Lander is the most dangerous man in America. He pilots a television blimp over packed football stadiums every weekend. He is fascinated with explosives. And he happens to be very, very crazy. That's why a beautiful PLO operative has seduced him. That's why--on Super Bowl Sunday--the world will witness the bloody assassination of the U. S. president and the worst mass murder in history. Unless someone discovers what Michael Lander plans . . . and can kill him first. From the Paperback edition.
Hannibal
Fiction, Government investigators, Revenge
Sequel to: [The Silence of the Lambs][1] Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn. Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries from behind a wall. In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil--a tour de force of psychological suspense. Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world. But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams. Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge. He was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher's empire. From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web. Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best. Powerful, hypnotic, utterly original, Hannibal is a dazzling feast for the imagination. Prepare to travel to hell and beyond as a master storyteller permanently alters the world you thought you knew. [1]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL23481W/The_silence_of_the_lambs
Hannibal Rising
ortolans, tantō, war criminals
HE IS ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING CHARACTERS IN ALL OF LITERATURE. AT LAST THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EVIL IS REVEALED. Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.
Red Dragon
Novel, psychiatrists, cannibalism
If you never thought a book could make you quake with fear, prepare yourself for Red Dragon. For you are about to meet a human monster, a tortured being driven by a force he cannot contain, who pleasures in viciously murdering happy families. When you discover how he chooses his victims, you will never feel safe again. You are about to be thrust so deeply into the heart of his obsession that you will find no escape. You are about to hope beyond hope that one man—a man with powers he is horrified to use—can stop this rage-consumed soul before he kills again. You are about to be swept into the arms of the…Red Dragon. --back cover

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Thomas Harris ranks 764 out of 7,302Before him are Epicharmus of Kos, Antonio Tabucchi, Klaus Ebner, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Robert Ludlum, and Natalia Ginzburg. After him are Gregory Skovoroda, Katherine Mansfield, Neal Cassady, Aelia Eudocia, Masaru Emoto, and Gregory of Narek.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1940, Thomas Harris ranks 61Before him are Tarō Asō, Shahnaz Pahlavi, Nancy Sinatra, Cliff Richard, Óscar Arias, and Jan Jongbloed. After him are George A. Romero, James Cromwell, Joachim Frank, Astrud Gilberto, Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein, and Jacques Rancière.

Others Born in 1940

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Thomas Harris ranks 864 out of 20,380Before him are Benedict Arnold (1741), Robert Ludlum (1927), Aaron T. Beck (1921), Anne Sullivan (1866), Susan B. Anthony (1820), and Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868). After him are Neal Cassady (1926), Theodore Schultz (1902), Glenn T. Seaborg (1912), John Sherman (1823), Oliver E. Williamson (1932), and Sinclair Lewis (1885).

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Thomas Harris ranks 80Before him are Louise Hay (1926), Dalton Trumbo (1905), William Saroyan (1908), Robert E. Howard (1906), John Dos Passos (1896), and Robert Ludlum (1927). After him are Neal Cassady (1926), Sinclair Lewis (1885), Raymond Carver (1938), Leon Uris (1924), Maya Angelou (1928), and Daniel Keyes (1927).