Hannibal Lecter Books in Order: How to read Thomas Harris’s series?

Created by American writer Thomas Harris, Hannibal Lecter is the most famous cannibal in literature. A respected Baltimore forensic psychiatrist, Hannibal consults with the FBI to assist them in finding other serial killers before being exposed as a psychopathic cannibalistic serial killer.

In Harris’s novels and film adaptations, Hannibal Lecter is depicted as a highly intelligent and sophisticated individual with a talent for manipulation who’s a complex and sympathetic character, despite being a cannibal who preys on his victims.

If Hannibal Lecter is one of the most iconic pop culture characters, it is thanks to multiple adaptations of Thomas Harris’s works. The character has been portrayed by Brian Cox (Manhunter), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon), Gaspard Ulliel and Aaran Thomas (Hannibal Rising) and Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, the TV series).

How to read the Hannibal Lecter Series in Order?

I. Reading the Hannibal Lecter Books in Publication Order

1. Red Dragon – FBI agent Will Graham once risked his sanity to capture Hannibal Lecter, an ingenious killer like no other. Now, he’s following the bloodstained pattern of the Tooth Fairy, a madman who’s already wiped out two families. To find him, Graham has to understand him. To understand him, Graham has only one place left to go: the mind of Dr. Lecter.
2. The Silence of the Lambs – As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknamed “Buffalo Bill,” FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him. That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind.

3. Hannibal – Seven years have passed since Dr. Lecter escaped from custody. But intruders have entered Dr. Lecter’s world, piercing his new identity, sensing the evil that surrounds him. For the multimillionaire Hannibal left maimed, for a corrupt Italian policeman, and for FBI agent Clarice Starling, who once stood before Lecter and who has never been the same, the final hunt for Hannibal Lecter has begun.
4. Hannibal Rising – Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. 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. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.

II. Reading the Hannibal Lecter Books in Chronological Order:

1. Hannibal Rising
2. Red Dragon
3. The Silence of the Lambs
4. Hannibal

If you like our article about reading Hannibal Lecter Books in Order, you may also want to check out Millennium by Stieg Larsson, or Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.