Pullman pens new 'must-have' companion book to His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman has written a new "must-have" companion book to the His Dark Materials trilogy, to be co-published by Scholastic UK and David Fickling Books in April. 

The Imagination Chamber will reveal new scenes set during the events of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, as well as companion novels La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth. It will be published in hardback on 28 April 2022.

Lauren Fortune, fiction publisher at Scholastic UK, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Imagination Chamber from Millie Hoskins and Caradoc King at United Agents. David Fickling, publisher at David Fickling Books, has edited the book.

The publishers said: "In this must-have companion to the His Dark Materials trilogy, readers will gain new insight into the story and lives of iconic characters such as Lyra, Will, Mrs Coulter, Lee Scoresby, Pantalaimon and Iorek Byrnison. Stunning, moving and exhilarating, Philip Pullman’s snapshot scenes illuminate and expand on his incomparably imaginative world. Readers will witness scenes such as Serafina Pekkala listening to Dust on her cloud-pine broom, Lyra’s childhood speculations about her absent mother and dazzling new insight into daemons. Each scene flickers into sight like the passage of cosmic rays through a cloud chamber, where imagination is the medium that condenses to make them visible."

First published in 1995, His Dark Materials (Scholastic) is one of the most popular and successful children’s series of all time. Pullman has sold eight million books for £58.5m since 1998, with the 1999 edition of Northern Lights his bestseller, on 976,471 copies sold. 

Pullman said: “I’ve always been fascinated by the little grains of dust (or Dust) that can grow into stories in the imagination chamber of the writer’s (and reader’s) mind. Here are some of those minute specks of vision, any of which could grow in any direction: pictures before they become visible. I hope readers enjoy letting them develop.” 

Fortune added: “In exquisite prose, Philip cuts new windows into his worlds for the reader to step through and reveals new truths about many of the iconic characters from Lyra’s universe.

Fickling said: “This is an astonishing book in every sense and for every sense. The Imagination Chamber is the work of a storytelling genius and as well as being wonderfully, gloriously fun to read it delivers one after another astonishing insights into how one of the world’s greatest storytellers makes stories and writes them so beautifully. If you know Lyra you will relish, delight and warm with recognition to every single story particle in the book – but even if you don’t, your own imagination will dance with delight as with a few effortless strokes of his pen the author begins another story moving on its own path. What a thrill to be allowed into Philip Pullman’s imagination.”