William Blake painted the Great Red Dragon series between 1805 and 1810. It comprises four paintings:
| • | The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun |
| • | The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun |
| • | The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea |
| • | The Number of the Beast is 666 |
The first two of these paintings play a key role in Thomas Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon, in which the vicious serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (known as The Tooth Fairy) is obsessed with The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun. (Harris uses this title, but actually describes The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.)
Red Dragon was the novel that introduced Hannibal Lecter. It was filmed in 1986, with the title Manhunter – starring the Scottish actor Brian Cox as Lecter. Following the success of the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs (based on Harris's sequel to Red Dragon), and the second sequel Hannibal, Red Dragon was remade in 2002 with its original title.
The NBC television series Hannibal (2013–15) is also based on elements of Red Dragon and its sequels, including the characters of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham (the FBI profiler who tracks down Lecter and the Tooth Fairy in Red Dragon).
© Haydn Thompson 2018