Philip Pullman
Life Events
| Date | Event | Details |
|---|---|---|
19 October 1946 | Birth | Born in Norwich, Norfolk, the son of a Royal Air Force pilot. His father died in a plane crash when Pullman was seven, an event that shaped his relationship with storytelling and loss. He spent parts of his childhood in Zimbabwe and Australia before returning to England, where he studied English at Exeter College, Oxford - the institution that would become the model for Jordan College in His Dark Materials. |
16 May 2019 | Appointment | Appointed a Companion of Honour in the 2019 New Year Honours, one of the most prestigious appointments in the British honours system with a maximum of 65 living members. The appointment recognised his contribution to literature. |
Birth19 October 1946
Born in Norwich, Norfolk, the son of a Royal Air Force pilot. His father died in a plane crash when Pullman was seven, an event that shaped his relationship with storytelling and loss. He spent parts of his childhood in Zimbabwe and Australia before returning to England, where he studied English at Exeter College, Oxford - the institution that would become the model for Jordan College in His Dark Materials.
Appointment16 May 2019
Appointed a Companion of Honour in the 2019 New Year Honours, one of the most prestigious appointments in the British honours system with a maximum of 65 living members. The appointment recognised his contribution to literature.
Reading Orders
Universes (1)
Series (2)
The Book of Dust
His Dark Materials
A companion trilogy set in the same multiverse, functioning as both prequel and sequel to His Dark Materials. La Belle Sauvage, the first volume, is set a decade before Northern Lights and follows a young boy protecting the infant Lyra during a catastrophic flood, establishing the theological and political forces that shape her world before she is old enough to understand them. The Secret Commonwealth, the second volume, follows an adult Lyra in her twenties and is the darkest and most complex work in the wider universe. The Rose Field, published in October 2025, brings the trilogy to its conclusion - Lyra's journey through Central Asia to find her estranged dæmon Pantalaimon, and with him, the capacity for wonder she fears she has lost.
His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials
Books (10)
Northern Lights
His Dark Materials
1995
The first volume of His Dark Materials introduces Lyra Belacqua, a young girl raised among the scholars of Jordan College, Oxford, in a world where the Church holds absolute authority and every human soul takes the form of an external animal companion called a daemon. When children begin disappearing from the streets of London and Lyra's friend Roger vanishes, she embarks on a journey north that takes her from the gaslit streets of an alternative Oxford to the ice palaces of the Arctic, confronting armoured bears, witches, and the sinister organisation known as the Gobblers. The novel establishes Pullman's alternative world with extraordinary confidence, grounding its philosophical concerns - the nature of Dust, the Church's fear of original sin, the meaning of growing up - in adventure narrative of genuine propulsive force.
The Subtle Knife
His Dark Materials