Red Dragon (novel)

Red Dragon (novel)

Red Dragon is a novel by Thomas Harris, first published in 1981. It was the first novel to feature Harris' character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The novel was adapted as a film, Manhunter, in 1986 which featured Brian Cox as Lecter. Directed by Michael Mann, the film was critically well received but fared poorly at the box office.

After Harris wrote a sequel to the novel, The Silence of the Lambs, in 1988 (itself turned into a highly successful film in 1991), Red Dragon found a new audience. A second sequel, Hannibal, was published in 1999 and adapted into a film in 2001. Both film sequels featured Anthony Hopkins in the role of Hannibal Lecter, for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1991. Due to the success of the second and third films, Red Dragon was remade as a film directed by Brett Ratner in 2002, this time with Hopkins playing Lecter. The remake kept the title of the original novel.

The title refers to the figure from The Great Red Dragon Paintings by William Blake, (though Harris refers to one of these, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, he actually describes another, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun).