Public access to unearthed Larsson stories in doubt

Stieg Larsson. Photo / David Lagerlof

The good news for Stieg Larsson addicts: two unpublished manuscripts have been unearthed in his native Sweden. The bad news: they have nothing to do with the Millennium trilogy and, in any case, fans might never be able to read them.

The National Library of Sweden revealed it was in possession of two science fiction stories, sent by a 17-year-old Larsson to a magazine in the 1970s in a bid to make his publishing debut.

Unlike the labyrinthine Millennium novels, the teenage works, The Crystal Balls and The Flies, are not thought to run to more than five pages each.

In a letter accompanying his speculative submission to the Jules Verne magazine, Larsson described himself as "a 17-year-old guy from Umea in the north of Sweden with dreams of becoming an author and journalist".

The magazine crushed those dreams, rejecting his first literary efforts.

In 2007, the stories were donated to the library as part of a wider archive provided by the Jules Verne magazine. And there they gathered dust until this week, and the library's public revelation.

The big question now is whether these teenage stories will ever be seen by Larsson's ravenous public.

Larsson died in 2004 aged 50 - before the first instalment of Lisbeth Salander's incredible tale, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was published and before he could finish penning the full Millennium series, which was supposed to run to 10 books.

The author never wrote a will and as a result, under Swedish law, his estate - including the rights to his books - went to his father and brother and not his partner of more than 30 years, Eva Gabrielsson. (She does have a laptop containing a partially written fourth book).

Public access to material in the archive of the Swedish National Library is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Magdalena Gram, the deputy national librarian of Sweden, said the library would contact Larsson's father and brother regarding the short stories.

- INDEPENDENT