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.