Larsson, Stieg

8vo, 3 volumes, boxed set edition, maps by Emily Faccini, SPECIALLY BOUND IN A UNIQUE BINDING BY SANGORSKI AND SUTCLIFFE in crushed black morocco, gilt designs on upper covers illustrating the themes in the titles of dragon, hornet's nest and fire, spines with black onlays lettered in silver together forming the author's name, additional onlays in red and white with titles of each volume (the first also with the original title, "Men Who Hate Women"), row of five silver studs on the upper covers, these interlocking with square red grooves on lower covers, all edges gilt, red endpapers, all within binder's black morocco case incorporating an additional folder with a letter of rejection in Swedish from the Institute of Applied Psychology in Stockholm (addressed to the author as "493 S. Larsson" informing him at the request of the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism, that [translation] "unfortunately your performance in the written selection test was not up to standard of other applicants. We are therefore unable to offer you a place at any College...in the autumn of 1972..."), WITH AN ORIGINAL PENCIL PORTRAIT BY STEIG LARSSON ON THE REVERSE, some slight wear to case

Sotheby's, 15 December 2011, lot 99

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, known as The Millenium Trilogy and a significant publishing phenomenon, presented in a spectacular and unique binding.

Inspired by his loathing of sexual violence towards women, as well as his experience as a journalist and editor (particularly for the anti-fascist and anti-extremist magazine Expo) Larsson wrote and submitted the manuscripts of the first three (of what was intended ultimately to be 10) novels in the Millenium series to various publishers before his sudden death in 2004. Norstedts Förlag accepted them for publication, but an English language publisher proved very difficult to find until Christopher Maclehose bought the rights for the small London publisher Quercus. By the middle of 2010 over 27 million copies of the trilogy had been sold worldwide. The immensely successful Swedish film adaptation appeared in 2009 and 2010; an American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, involving the BBC, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony Pictures, was released at the end of 2011.

Alison Strachan, the binding director at Sangorski & Sutcliffe / Shepherd's, has commented on the special design of the binding: "...There was... a strong impression in my mind of Lisbet's physical appearance, which was echoed in the violence in her character as well as that shown against her by male characters in the book.  The studs were a manifestation of this male/female theme and the sado-masochism of some of the male characters.  The way the studs each fit into the cover of the next book, was a symbol of how the protagonists work together, their close relationship... the hand-tooled designs of each front cover were designed to echo the images of the titles and the tattoos that cover Lisbet..."