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Philip Pullman BOOKS IN ORDER

Curated by Emma Hartley
5 Books Listed
2 Reading Lists
1995 Earliest Listed Year
Adventure · Young Adult Genre
His Dark Materials Series Largest Listed Sequence

About the Author

Philip Pullman is a British author best known for His Dark Materials, one of the most celebrated fantasy trilogies of the 20th century. Born in 1946, he worked as a school teacher before fiction took over. His Dark Materials — beginning with Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the US) — was written for adults as much as for children, drawing on Paradise Lost, Blake, and quantum physics. The Book of Dust, his companion trilogy, continues Lyra's story across a 20-year span. Pullman has won the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award, and was knighted in 2019.

His Dark Materials: Reading Order

The His Dark Materials trilogy is Pullman's masterwork and one of the most celebrated works of fantasy literature of the past century. The three books form a single continuous story and must be read in order:

1
Northern Lights (published as The Golden Compass in North America) · 1995
Lyra Belacqua, an orphan raised in the halls of Jordan College, Oxford, embarks on a journey north to find her kidnapped friend — and discovers a conspiracy that reaches from her world's version of the Church to the Arctic ice. Introduces Lyra's dæmon Pantalaimon, the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison, and the concept of Dust, which drives the trilogy's central conflict.
2
The Subtle Knife · 1997
Lyra crosses into a different world — our world — where she meets Will Parry, a boy from Oxford who has stumbled into the same multiverse of parallel worlds. Will comes to possess the subtle knife, a blade that can cut windows between worlds. The scope of the story expands enormously, and the nature of Dust becomes clearer and more alarming.
3
The Amber Spyglass · 2000
The trilogy's conclusion, and the most ambitious of the three: a journey to the land of the dead, a war against the Authority, and a final choice that costs both Lyra and Will everything. Won the Whitbread Book of the Year — the first children's novel to do so. The ending remains one of the most discussed and divisive in contemporary fantasy.

The Book of Dust: The Companion Trilogy

Pullman's second trilogy returns to Lyra's world and expands the story in both directions — before and after the events of His Dark Materials. Unlike a straightforward prequel/sequel series, The Book of Dust is conceived as an "equel": a parallel story of equal weight.

1
La Belle Sauvage · 2017
Set before the events of Northern Lights, when Lyra is still an infant. Malcolm Polstead, a twelve-year-old boy who works at a riverside inn, becomes drawn into a conspiracy surrounding the baby Lyra and a terrifying force that pursues her. A darker, more mythological book than the original trilogy, with a flood sequence of genuine nightmare power.
2
The Secret Commonwealth · 2019
Set twenty years after The Amber Spyglass. Lyra is now a young adult at Oxford, and her relationship with Pantalaimon has fractured — she has lost the ability to talk to her own soul. A book about rationalism versus imagination, and what it costs to stop believing in things you cannot prove. The plot takes Lyra deep into Central Asia. The third volume is forthcoming.
3
The Rose Garden · forthcoming
The third and final volume of The Book of Dust has been announced but does not yet have a confirmed publication date. Pullman has described it as completing Lyra's adult story. Readers who have finished The Secret Commonwealth will be aware that several major plot threads remain unresolved.
Reading order recommendation: Read the original trilogy first, then The Book of Dust in order. La Belle Sauvage works as a prequel but is written for readers who already know Lyra's world; its weight depends on context the original trilogy provides.

What His Dark Materials Is Actually About

Pullman described his trilogy as "Paradise Lost for teenagers" — and he meant it seriously. Milton's epic is the structural and thematic spine of His Dark Materials: the Fall is not a catastrophe but a liberation, consciousness is not a curse but a gift, and the Authority (his version of God) is not omnipotent but merely old, fearful, and served by an institution — the Magisterium — that uses faith as a mechanism of control.

This is why the books remain controversial in some religious communities, and why they generate the specific kind of loyalty they do among readers who encountered them young. Pullman is not writing allegory in the C.S. Lewis sense — he is not encoding a message. He is arguing a position, clearly and with full seriousness, about consciousness, free will, and the nature of the good life. The argument happens to take place across multiple universes inhabited by talking bears and witches who live for thousands of years.

The concept of Dust — a fundamental particle that accumulates around conscious beings, particularly after puberty, and which the Magisterium considers sinful — is the trilogy's central symbol. What Dust actually is, and what it means that it can be destroyed, drives the plot of all three books.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is His Dark Materials complete?
Yes — the original trilogy (Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) is complete and tells a full story with a definitive ending. The Book of Dust companion trilogy is not yet complete: two of three volumes have been published, with the third (The Rose Garden) still forthcoming.
Is The Golden Compass the same as Northern Lights?
Yes — same book, different title. Northern Lights is the original UK title; the book was published as The Golden Compass in North America. The content is identical. The series is called His Dark Materials in both territories.
Do I need to read His Dark Materials before The Book of Dust?
Yes, strongly recommended. La Belle Sauvage is technically a prequel and can be read first, but it is written for readers who already know Lyra's world and its mythology. Much of its emotional weight is lost without context. Read the original trilogy first.
Why were the His Dark Materials books controversial?
The books are critical of organized religion — specifically, a fictional Church called the Magisterium that suppresses knowledge and controls populations through fear. Pullman has described himself as a "Church of England atheist" and has been open about his disagreements with C.S. Lewis's Narnia, which he considers patronising and theologically manipulative. Some religious groups, particularly in the United States, campaigned against the books and the 2007 film adaptation.
What age is His Dark Materials appropriate for?
The original trilogy is typically shelved as children's/young adult fiction, but Pullman has always written it for readers of all ages. Most readers encounter it between ages 10 and 14; many adults read it for the first time in their 30s and find it entirely undiminished. The themes — consciousness, mortality, the problem of God — are not simplified for younger readers. The third book in particular deals directly with death and loss in ways that some younger children may find difficult.
Is there a His Dark Materials TV series?
Yes — the BBC/HBO co-production His Dark Materials ran for three seasons (2019–2022), adapting all three novels of the original trilogy. It is widely considered a far more faithful and successful adaptation than the 2007 film The Golden Compass, which covered only the first book and was a commercial disappointment. The TV series has Pullman's endorsement.

Famous Characters

The Book of Dust

Reading Guides & Book Lists

These are the reading lists currently covered on this site, not a count of every work the author has published.

His Dark Materials Series

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The Book of Dust Series

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