Thomas Harris: Black Sunday, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1975. First UK edition, first printing 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 318 pp. Black cloth, gilt lettering. Not price-clipped – price £3.25. First novel.

An auspicious début by the author of the Hannibal Lecter series, a thriller about a terrorist attempt to wreck havoc by attacking the American Superbowl in an airship.

All of Harris’s novels have now been filmed and each book remains solidly in print throughout the world. The influence of Harris’ fiction cannot be underestimated: the serial killer as a protagonist/antagonist has now become a staple of modern crime fiction, for good or ill.

Condition: This is a reasonable copy of the British first edition. A little marked along the fore-edge and base of book block, but clean and tight internally with no marks to the endpapers, little rubbing to extremes of boards in a dust wrapper with an internal repair to a tear on front panel and a small amount of creasing.