British author Elly Griffiths has achieved great literary success. Many of her books are available in Swedish, but in Sweden she is most known for her series about the forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. Thirteen of the fourteen books in the series have been translated into Swedish (the fourteenth came out in 2022 in the original language). That the author likes our university is clear in the thirteenth book in the series, The Night Hawks, where she writes, among other things, that Uppsala University is ‘more prestigious than the University of North Norfolk’. (Even if the University of North Norfolk is fictitious, it’s very likely modelled on a real British university.) The author has written most of her books under the pen name Elly Griffiths, but not all.

Elly Griffiths has received a number of awards for her writing, including the Mary Higgins Clark Award and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. She also has a background in publishing. Among other things, she worked as a children’s books editor at HarperCollins before her début as a writer.

Adam Helms Lectures are given by prominent persons in the international book and publishing industry. The lectures are arranged by the Uppsala University Library in collaboration with the Swedish Publishers’ Association.

But why does the Uppsala University Library arrange Adam Helms Lectures?

‘When the Swedish Publishers’ Association donated the collection to the University Library in 2019, the library also took over the arrangement to hold an annual Adam Helms Lecture,’ says Viveka Stolt, Communications Officer at the University Library. A committee consisting of representatives from the Swedish Publishers’ Association, the University Library and the University decide who the lecturers will be.

But Adam Helms? Who was he?

Adam Helms was originally from Denmark. When he married in the 1930s, he came to Stockholm and began working at Bonniers with the Svalan book club. Eventually, he was put in charge of the Forum publishing firm, which originally published new editions of classics. But Adam Helms was an innovator and is considered to be a pioneer in international co-production between publishers. In 1971, he started the Trevi publishing house, which focused on woman writers. When Adam Helms passed away in 1980, he left his collection of books about the book market, book publishers and bookselling to the Swedish Publishers’ Association. In 2019, Adam Helms’s collection on the history of the book industry, or ‘bokhandeliana’ as he called it himself, was donated to the Uppsala University Library.