The Secret Commonwealth
Chapters - Philip Pullman
Chapter 1: Moonlight and Bloodshed
Pantalaimon separates from Lyra at night to roam Oxford and witnesses a brutal murder near the Royal Mail depot. Meanwhile, in Geneva, Marcel Delamare of La Maison Juste discusses intercepting a scientist carrying rose materials from Central Asia. The dying man's daemon entrusts Pan with a leather wallet before perishing.
POV: Pantalaimon·On page: Lyra Belacqua, Olivier Bonneville, Marcel Delamare, Pierre Binaud
Chapter 2: Their Clothes Smelled of Roses
Lyra comforts her college friend Miriam, whose father's perfume business is failing because Levantine rose supplies have dried up. Pan tells Lyra he witnessed someone being murdered, connecting the rose shortage to something darker.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon
Chapter 3: Left Luggage
Lyra and Pan visit the Oxford police station to report the murder, where Pan recognises one of the constables as the killer's voice. Afterwards they retrieve the dead man's rucksack from the railway station's left luggage office, and the wallet inside identifies him as Roderick Hassall. They begin to realise how much trouble they may have walked into.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon, Malcolm Polstead
Chapter 4: The College Silver
In Geneva, Marcel Delamare interviews the young alethiometer reader Olivier Bonneville, who uses the unsettling new method. Back at Jordan College, Lyra polishes the silver while Mr Cawson grumbles about the rosewater shortage. That evening she goes to the White Horse with Dick Orchard, who tells her the wounded attacker is a mail-depot worker called Benny Morris and mentions the gyptian Giorgio Brabandt.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon, Olivier Bonneville, Dick Orchard, Marcel Delamare
Chapter 5: Dr Strauss's Journal
Lyra reads Dr Strauss's journal from the rucksack, which describes a journey into the desert of Karamakan with Hassall to find a mysterious red building guarded by Latin-speaking priests, where roses grow. The account of separation from daemons deeply disturbs Pan, and their argument about the novel The Hyperchorasmians intensifies their estrangement.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon·Mentioned: Dr Strauss
Chapter 6: Mrs Lonsdale
Lyra visits Mrs Lonsdale (Alice) and is shocked when Malcolm arrives on familiar terms, revealing a hidden connection between them. Pan confesses that Malcolm's daemon Asta saw him separated, and that evening the new Master of Jordan tells Lyra her funding has run out and she must move to a servant's room, stripping her of her privileged position.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon, Alice Parslow, Malcolm Polstead, Dr Werner Hammond
Chapter 7: Hannah Relf
Hannah Relf summons Lyra to her house, where Malcolm and Alice reveal the story of the great flood - how Malcolm saved baby Lyra in his canoe and killed Gerard Bonneville to protect Alice. They explain that the law of scholastic sanctuary protecting Lyra is being deliberately dismantled, and that the new Master is part of the conspiracy against her.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon, Hannah Relf, Malcolm Polstead, Alice Parslow·Mentioned: Lord Asriel, Gerard Bonneville, Dr Werner Hammond
Chapter 8: Little Clarendon Street
Lyra tells Malcolm about the murder and the rucksack over wine in a restaurant, and he immediately grasps the danger. They return to Jordan to find that intruders have already searched her room and stolen the rucksack - but Lyra had cleverly substituted the real contents with decoy items. Malcolm arranges for Lyra to stay at his parents' pub, the Trout at Godstow.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Pantalaimon, Malcolm Polstead·Mentioned: Will Parry, Gerard Bonneville
Chapter 9: The Alchemist
Malcolm calls on Professor Lucy Arnold at the Botanic Garden to ask about the roses from Central Asia. At the Trout, Lyra tries the new alethiometer method, has a vision of Kirjava and then glimpses a young man at a desk in Geneva whom she briefly mistakes for Will. Pan slips out to find the alchemist Sebastian Makepeace, who tells him the seized notebook is a clavicula adiumenti.
POV: Malcolm Polstead, Lyra Belacqua, Pantalaimon·On page: Hannah Relf, Professor Lucy Arnold, Sebastian Makepeace
Chapter 10: The Linnaeus Room
Malcolm convenes Arnold, Charles Capes, Napier, Milner, Ghazarian and Johnsson in the Linnaeus Room to share what is known about the rose research, but the meeting is broken up by a CCD raid led by Captain Hartland; Malcolm clears the room and destroys a spy fly. Back at the Trout that night, Lyra and Pan have a terrible argument about Makepeace and about Roger in the world of the dead, and Pan walks out.
POV: Malcolm Polstead·On page: Hannah Relf, Professor Lucy Arnold·Mentioned: Sebastian Makepeace
Chapter 11: The Knot
Lyra wakes to find Pan has left her, with only a note reading 'GONE TO LOOK FOR YOUR IMAGINATION.' Devastated, she goes to Dick Orchard for help, who gives her a gyptian knot-handkerchief and directs her to his grandfather Giorgio Brabandt. Brabandt agrees to take Lyra on his narrowboat to the Fens to see Farder Coram, and in Geneva, Delamare obtains a sample of the Karamakan rose oil.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Olivier Bonneville, Dick Orchard, Giorgio Brabandt, Marcel Delamare
Chapter 12: The Dead Moon
During the journey to the Fens, Brabandt tells Lyra stories of the secret commonwealth - the world of fairies, ghosts, and marsh lights. In Geneva, Olivier Bonneville uses the new method to spy on Lyra but instead discovers that Delamare has an obsessive collection of photographs of her. Back in Oxford, Malcolm tracks down Benny Morris and interviews him under a false pretence.
POV: Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm Polstead·On page: Olivier Bonneville, Marcel Delamare·Mentioned: George Paston
Chapter 13: The Zeppelin
At Wykeham College, Glenys Godwin briefs Malcolm on Oakley Street's intelligence about Karamakan and sends him east; Capes attends. In Geneva, the Magisterium congress opens and Delamare moves to replace the unwieldy body with a smaller High Council. In the Fens, Lyra and Giorgio Brabandt are chased across the marshes by a CCD zeppelin, which is brought down when a heron is driven into its engine. Pan, meanwhile, heads east through the night.
POV: Pantalaimon, Lyra Belacqua·On page: Glenys Godwin·Mentioned: George Paston
Chapter 14: The Café Cosmopolitain
Dick Orchard visits the Trout and tells Malcolm that Lyra has lost Pan and gone to the Fens. Meanwhile, Pan stows away on the German schooner Elsa, heading for Cuxhaven, planning to travel up the Elbe to Wittenberg to confront the philosopher Gottfried Brande, whom he blames for stealing Lyra's imagination. The Magisterium congress in Geneva votes to create a smaller, more powerful High Council under Delamare.
POV: Malcolm Polstead, Pantalaimon·On page: Olivier Bonneville, Dick Orchard, Marcel Delamare, Pierre Binaud
Chapter 15: Letters
Lyra arrives in the Fens and is welcomed by Orlando Faa and Ma Costa, then visits Farder Coram, who listens to her story and tells her about Oakley Street. She receives a letter from Malcolm, who is leaving for Central Asia, and writes back telling him about her plan to find Pan at the Blue Hotel. Pan endures the Channel crossing in the hold of the Elsa, haunted by ghosts.
POV: Lyra Belacqua, Pantalaimon·On page: Farder Coram, Ma Costa, Orlando Faa, Marcel Delamare·Mentioned: Malcolm Polstead
Chapter 16: Lignum Vitae
Farder Coram gives Lyra a small purse of gold coins and a short fighting stick called Pequeno, and advises her to travel disguised as a witch's familiar's servant. She reads Simon Talbot's essay On the Non-existence of Daemons and writes to Malcolm. In Geneva, Delamare visits his vile bedridden mother and they speak coldly of his sister Marisa; Olivier Bonneville flees the city with a bag of stolen books. The chapter ends with a CCD raid on the Fens and Lyra escaping aboard Terry Besnik's boat.
POV: Lyra Belacqua·On page: Farder Coram, Malcolm Polstead, Hannah Relf, Marcel Delamare·Mentioned: Serafina Pekkala
Chapter 17: The Miners
Pan leaves the Elsa at Cuxhaven while Lyra crosses on a continental ferry, where she fends off a harassing passenger and falls in with two Welsh miners, Gwyn and Dafydd, who are heading to Sala in Sweden. When the Office of Right Duty constables question her, she bluffs them by posing as an agent of La Maison Juste and showing the gyptian knot.
POV: Lyra Belacqua
Chapter 18: Malcolm in Geneva
Malcolm arrives in Geneva, where the Magisterial Congress is ending. He investigates Simon Talbot's connections to the Magisterium and discovers that Talbot has been attending the congress. Malcolm locates Talbot and confronts him about his philosophical work and its effects on people like Lyra.
POV: Malcolm Polstead·Mentioned: George Paston
Chapter 19: The Professor of Certainty
Pan reaches Wittenberg and searches for Gottfried Brande's house, eventually finding it through a girl at a school for the blind. He confronts the philosopher, who is a frail old man, and discovers that Brande's philosophy is not what he expected - the man is more complex and less villainous than his books suggest.
POV: Pantalaimon·On page: Gottfried Brande
Chapter 20: The Furnace-Man
In Prague, Lyra is taken in by the alchemist Dr Johannes Agrippa and meets the daemonless book dealer Vaclav Kubicek. She witnesses the burning furnace-man Cornelis van Dongen and his water-daemon Dinessa, whose fused agony Agrippa is using to power his steam engine. Agrippa explains that akterrakeh means aqua terraque - water and land travelling separately - and tells her to go south, towards the Blue Hotel.
POV: Lyra Belacqua