The Book of Dust

by Philip Pullman

A companion trilogy set in the same multiverse, functioning as both prequel and sequel to His Dark Materials. La Belle Sauvage, the first volume, is set a decade before Northern Lights and follows a young boy protecting the infant Lyra during a catastrophic flood, establishing the theological and political forces that shape her world before she is old enough to understand them. The Secret Commonwealth, the second volume, follows an adult Lyra in her twenties and is the darkest and most complex work in the wider universe. The Rose Field, published in October 2025, brings the trilogy to its conclusion - Lyra's journey through Central Asia to find her estranged dæmon Pantalaimon, and with him, the capacity for wonder she fears she has lost.

Part of His Dark Materials

A multiverse of parallel worlds connected by invisible threads of Dust - elementary particles that accumulate around conscious beings and that different cultures variously interpret as sin, dark matter, or the physical substrate of the soul. The universe is most fully realised through the world of Lyra Belacqua, an alternative Earth where the Catholic Church never lost its grip on European civilisation and every human is accompanied by a daemon - an animal-shaped external manifestation of their soul that can speak, feel, and change form until the onset of adulthood fixes its shape permanently. Pullman's universe is distinguished by the seriousness with which it treats its central questions - consciousness, free will, the nature of growing up, and the institutional tendency to confuse authority with truth. Built across six novels spanning several decades of Lyra's life, it is one of the richest and most philosophically engaged secondary world constructions in contemporary fiction.

Publication Order

1
La Belle Sauvage
2017
2
The Secret Commonwealth
2019
3
The Rose Field
2025