The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) (original 2000; edition 2001)

by Philip Pullman (Author)

Series: His Dark Materials (3)

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Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

The Amber Spyglass

Original title

Nothern Lights/The Amber Spyglass

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2000

People/Characters

Important places

University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK (Jordan College)

Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Important events

Related movies

His Dark Materials (2019 | IMDb)

Epigraph

O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

Robert Grant, from Hymns Ancient and Modern.

O stars,
isn't it from you that the lover's desire for the face
of his beloved arises? Doesn't his secret insight
into her pure features come from pure constellations?

Ranier Maria Rilke, The Third Elegy.
From The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (transl. Stephen Michell)

Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.
The night is cold and delicate and full of angels
Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,
The chime goes unheard.
We are together at last, though far apart.

John Ashbery, The Ecclesiast.
From River and Mountains.

Dedication

First words

In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with melt-water splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below.

Quotations

I used to be a nun, you see. I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all.

“But there’s my mother. I’ve got to go back and look after her. I just left her with Mrs Cooper, and it’s not fair on either of them.”

“But it’s not fair on you to have to do that.”

“No,” he said, “but that’s a different sort of not fair. That’s just like an earthquake or a rainstorm. It might not be fair, but no one’s to blame. But if I just leave my mother with an old lady who isn’t very well herself, then that’s a different kind of not fair. That would be wrong.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Jefferson, Margo

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC