# Philip Pullman - Maker: Novelist - Date: b. 1946 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/philip-pullman/ > The Oxford schoolteacher who rewrote Paradise Lost for young readers as His Dark Materials, giving every human a daemon and fantasy one of its fiercest arguments with Narnia. **Why it matters:** Pullman's trilogy proved that children's fantasy could carry adult philosophy and theology, won prizes no children's book had won before, and reached the screen as a 2007 film with its own video game and a BBC/HBO series. ## Quick answers **Who is Philip Pullman?** The Oxford schoolteacher who rewrote Paradise Lost for young readers as His Dark Materials, giving every human a daemon and fantasy one of its fiercest arguments with Narnia. **When was Philip Pullman born?** Philip Pullman was born in 1946 in Norwich, England. **What is Philip Pullman known for?** Philip Pullman is best known for His Dark Materials. **Why does Philip Pullman matter to fantasy and games?** Pullman's trilogy proved that children's fantasy could carry adult philosophy and theology, won prizes no children's book had won before, and reached the screen as a 2007 film with its own video game and a BBC/HBO series. ## Life Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman was born in Norwich on October 19, 1946. His father, an RAF pilot, was killed in a plane crash in Kenya in 1954 and posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for service during the Mau Mau uprising, a revelation Pullman accepted as a serious challenge to his childhood image of his father as a hero. His mother remarried another RAF officer; the family lived for a time in South Australia and then in Harlech, North Wales. Pullman grew up on Kipling, Superman, Batman and Tintin, and as a teenager discovered the poetry that would shape him: T. S. Eliot, then John Milton's *Paradise Lost*, then, via Allen Ginsberg, William Blake. He read English at Exeter College, Oxford, graduating with a third in 1968, and married Judith Speller in 1970. For years he taught children aged nine to thirteen at Bishop Kirk Middle School in Oxford, writing school plays and retelling Homer for his pupils, and from 1988 to 1996 he lectured part-time at Westminster College, Oxford. He was president of the Society of Authors from 2013 and campaigned for fair pay for writers. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours. ## Work Pullman wrote plays and Victorian-set thrillers, notably the Sally Lockhart books beginning with *The Ruby in the Smoke* (1985), before turning to the work that made his name. [His Dark Materials](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/his-dark-materials/) begins with *Northern Lights* (1995; *The Golden Compass* in North America), continues through *The Subtle Knife* (1997) and ends with *The Amber Spyglass* (2000). Lyra Belacqua lives in a parallel Oxford where every person's soul walks beside them as an animal daemon, and where a church-like Magisterium kidnaps children to sever them from theirs. Her search for a missing friend becomes a war across worlds against the Authority, a false god, and a retelling of the Fall in which the loss of innocence is growth rather than sin. Pullman called himself knowingly "of the Devil's party," borrowing Blake's verdict on Milton. The books were also an argument with [C. S. Lewis](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-s-lewis/). Pullman has been sharply critical of [Narnia](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-chronicles-of-narnia/), objecting especially to Susan's exclusion for her interest in "lipstick and nylons" and to a heaven reached through a railway accident. His answer was a "republic of Heaven" located in this world. That stance drew fierce religious criticism, and equally fierce praise from secular readers. The companion trilogy *The Book of Dust*, *La Belle Sauvage* (2017), *The Secret Commonwealth* (2019) and *The Rose Field* (October 2025), returns to Lyra as an infant and then as a young woman. ## Legacy *Northern Lights* won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and in 2007 was voted the best Carnegie winner of its first seventy years. *The Amber Spyglass* became the first children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year. The trilogy placed third in the BBC's 2003 Big Read poll, and Pullman received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2005. Arriving alongside [Harry Potter](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/harry-potter/), His Dark Materials helped make [Children's & YA Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/childrens-fantasy/) a serious literary and commercial force for adult readers too. On screen, New Line's *The Golden Compass* (2007), directed by Chris Weitz with Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and grossed $372 million worldwide, but underperformed in North America, and its planned sequels were abandoned. Sega's tie-in game, developed by Shiny Entertainment for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP and Windows, reached shelves before the film and let players control Lyra and the armored bear Iorek Byrnison. A fuller adaptation followed in the BBC One and HBO series *His Dark Materials* (2019–22), produced by Bad Wolf, which adapted all three novels. A children's-literature laureate, Michael Morpurgo, called Pullman "the Tolkien of our day"; whatever the comparison's merits, it places him squarely among the makers of modern [Portal Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/portal-fantasy/) and [fantasy cinema](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/fantasy-film/). ## Facts - His father, an RAF pilot, was killed in a crash in Kenya in 1954, when Pullman was seven. - Northern Lights (1995; The Golden Compass in North America) won the Carnegie Medal and, in 2007, was voted the "Carnegie of Carnegies." - The Amber Spyglass was the first children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year, in January 2002. - He taught 9- to 13-year-olds at an Oxford middle school, retelling the Iliad and the Odyssey for his students. - Sega's 2007 video game The Golden Compass, developed by Shiny Entertainment, was released before the New Line film. - The Rose Field, final volume of his companion trilogy The Book of Dust, was published on October 23, 2025. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman) - [The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/pullman_philip) - [The Golden Compass (video game) on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(video_game)) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.