The Golden Compass

Description

In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or Redwall. Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.

First Sentence

Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.

Excerpt

Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.

Description

Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

Subjects

Series Statement

• His Dark Materials

Links

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Other Editions

• The Golden CompassHardcoverDistributed by Random House1996-01-01
• Northern Lights.Scholastic1996-01-01
• Northern Lights (His Dark Materials)PaperbackScholastic Point1996-10-18
• The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials)Perfection Learning Prebound1997-09-01
• The golden compassAlfred A. Knopf1998-01-01
• Northern Lights (His Dark Materials)Scholastic Press2001-09-14