Sir Francis Bacon once said, “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” But what about books that should be smelled?

“I’ve read a lot of Haruki Murakami,” says Mr Timothy Han. “Norwegian Wood would make a good fragrance.” The perfumer and candlemaker is discussing his favourite books and what he could extract for his next scent. Mr Han’s fragrance brand, TIMOTHY HAN / EDITION, is unusual. First, there are only five fragrances in the portfolio, and second, it doesn’t set out simply to make nice-smelling products. Instead, Mr Han interprets works of literature, extracts ideas, concepts or feelings from them and then distils them into fragrances that, he hopes, speak to the book in some way.

Mr Han could be something from a storybook, too. Tall and slight with long black hair, his voice is thick and resonant, with an almost Mr Adam Driver-esque quality to it. The appearance of Balto, a huge Siberian husky who accompanies him to his office in Somerset House in London most days, only adds to the effect. Balto paces around Mr Han, occasionally whining or howling, before settling below the perfumer’s chair with his chin on his paws.

“Perfume is very pretentious,” says Mr Han. “A lot of perfumers talk about how something is based in their childhood, like here’s me running through my grandmother’s farm in Provence, smelling lavender.” Mr Han finds this approach to perfume alienating to the user. What does a lavender field in Provence mean to someone who has never been there? “At least with a book, you may have read it – and if you haven’t, then you can read it – so it allows you to relate to the fragrance in a different way,” he says. “It also allows you to judge the fragrance and agree and disagree with my interpretation of the book.”

A former assistant to the fashion designer Mr John Galliano, Mr Han moved from Canada to Paris to study fashion design before settling in London and pivoting to scented candles and perfume. After having a stab at creating his first fragrance, he gave a prototype to his friend, the chef Ms Olia Hercules. “I thought, you know, she’s a chef,” says Mr Han. “She smells stuff and whatever, and she took a sample and came back to me a week later and said, ‘I’ve had three people ask me what I’m wearing and I think you should consider selling it.’”

Mr Han is not the first perfumer to base a scent on a book (see Frederic Malle’s Portrait Of A Lady), but he is the first to base all his fragrances on books. On The Road, inspired by the seminal novel by Mr Jack Kerouac, opens with an almost aggressive punch of rubber tyres on a road. After settling on the skin, the leathery labdanum and green galbanum start to come to the surface, balanced with a softer hint of vanilla. It’s a well-rounded, undeniably masculine fragrance that will speak to Mr Kerouac’s readers on a literal level as well.

She Came To Stay, inspired by Ms Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, on the other hand, is much more abstract. “I was really trying to capture in the fragrance the uncertainty that existed in her mind, both in the world but also in her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre,” says Mr Han. “I took a lot of traditional perfume notes, but put them together in a way that was slightly unusual and backwards.” The result is a fascinating scent that manages to balance the sweetness of geranium and nutmeg with the earthiness of oakmoss and cedar wood.

Against Nature, inspired by Mr Joris-Karl Huysman’s novel, is perhaps Mr Han’s most controversial fragrance. It uses a mixture of natural and artificially fragranced oils to reflect the juxtaposition of reality and artifice and has an intentional note of blood, which is created by using a metallic top note. The result is an intoxicating mix of peppery florals and what smells ever so slightly like battery acid. It is unlike anything else on the fragrance market.

It won’t appeal to everyone, but that’s exactly the idea. “I’d rather make something that people love or hate, or at least have an opinion on – something that you remember, rather than something that’s nice and forgettable,” says Mr Han.

He chose the books based on their influence on popular culture – Ms de Beauvoir’s contribution to contemporary feminism, for instance, or the Beat and counter-culture movements that surrounded On The Road. “I wanted books that were slightly provocative or interesting,” he says. “They didn’t have to be books that everybody liked. I also wanted books that had interesting titles, if I’m honest.”

The perfumer has close ties with the publisher Penguin Random House and it’s possible that a scented copy of On The Road could be in the works. “I want to make it so, as you flip through, the scent changes according to where in the book you are,” says Mr Han. “It is possible, but it’s so expensive to do. If we do it, it will be one-off sort of thing.” Like a scratch and sniff? “No,” he says. “But you can scent ink and then print with that ink.”

Does Mr Han have his own defining work of literature? “The one book that I love a lot is The Little Prince,” he says. “It’s a children’s book, but, for me, it’s a philosophical book that gives a very interesting view on humanity and though it’s nearly 100 years old, it’s so relevant to today’s time, about the environment and the way mankind behaves.” The Little Prince hasn’t made it onto Mr Han’s perfume roster, however much he likes it. “As a title for a fragrance I don’t think it works, although I did try and do it,” he says. “It was a kind of sandy rose, but wasn’t quite right.”

Mr Han is sticking with his five scents for the time being, but will eventually branch out and create more indefinable, intoxicating and polarising fragrances. “Nobody wants to step onto the Tube and have five other people around them wearing the same fragrance,” he says. “It’s great to generate some kind of emotional response.”