THE FOLIO SOCIETY
BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman
Your price US$199.95
Production Details
The first fully illustrated hardback edition.
Exclusive new preface by Philip Pullman.
Bound in cloth, printed and blocked with individual designs by Peter Bailey.
more details ↓A magnificent new Folio Society edition of a worldwide phenomenon.
Since the publication of the first volume of His Dark Materials in 1995, Philip Pullman’s trilogy has won millions of readers, garnered countless awards
and accolades and been
adapted for stage and screen. The Amber Spyglass, the third volume, was the first ever children’s book to be awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, confirming the trilogy as a work that demands to be read by all. Now The Folio Society presents the first ever fully illustrated hardback edition.
The heroine of His Dark Materials is 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua, who lives half-wild and carefree with her animal dæmon among the scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. Lyra’s guardian, Lord Asriel, has made an enemy of the sinister and all-powerful Church authorities – the Magisterium. Caught up in the conflict, Lyra must travel great distances, to the frozen Arctic wastes and beyond, towards a fateful encounter with Will Parry, a fugitive boy from another world. When Lyra and Will join forces, their perilous journey leads them to a decisive battle between freedom and authority, in which Lyra will play the ultimate part.
‘Rarely, if ever, have readers been offered such a rich casket of wonders’INDEPENDENT
The emotional and intellectual range of
Pullman’s narrative is astonishing. In the
words of the Times Literary Supplement, ‘the
prose is muscular and musical, the emotions
uncensored, the ideas... tantalizingly complex’. Lyra and
Will are realistically flawed, but they grow in strength
and wisdom, and the trilogy’s conclusion sees them make
a heartbreaking sacrifice for the greater good. Drawing
on influences from Blake to Milton, and brimming
with fascinating ideas about creation, consciousness,
childhood and free will, His Dark Materials is above
all a triumph of storytelling.
THE TIMES
Peter Bailey’s illustrations provide the perfect window into Pullman’s thrillingly inventive
world. With his delicate, shadowy images, reminiscent of the work of Edward
Ardizzone, he captures the story’s mystery and complexity.
The Folio Society is delighted to publish his illustrations, together with the drawings by Philip Pullman from the original editions. The Folio edition also includes a newly commissioned preface by Philip Pullman, providing an exclusive insight into the inspiration behind His Dark Materials.
‘One of the supreme literary dreamers and magicians of our time’GUARDIAN on Philip Pullman
The city of Oxford has proved an abundant
source of inspiration to storytellers, from Lewis Carroll to J. R. R. Tolkien. Philip Pullman carries on this tradition, having studied, taught and
lived in Oxford for more than 40 years. He is the author of over 30 books, the most famous of which is His Dark Materials. He holds the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the awarding body of which
described him as ‘a master storyteller’.
Peter Bailey has illustrated books by Alexander McCall Smith and Dick King-Smith, as well as Cider with Rosie and John Betjeman’s Poems for The Folio Society. He is a longterm collaborator of Pullman, and has illustrated Clockwork, I was a Rat, The Scarecrow and his Servant and Mossyback, all by Philip Pullman, and now, exclusively for The Folio Society, His Dark Materials.
‘Peter [Bailey] has done a quite magnificent job – the atmosphere, the details, the warmth of the characterisation ... I could not be more pleased, and I think the books look utterly splendid’PHILIP PULLMAN
AWARDS
for The Golden Compass
Carnegie Medal
Carnegie of Carnegies
Guardian Children’s
Fiction Prize
for The Subtle Knife
British Fantasy Award
for The Amber Spyglass
British Book Awards -
Children’s Book of the Year
Whitbread Children’s
Book Award
Whitbread Book of the Year
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