‘And now the final part begins . . .’
Oxford, Tuesday 29 April 2025: Philip Pullman has announced the long-awaited and highly anticipated conclusion to his bestselling The Book of Dust sequence. The final volume, titled The Rose Field, will be published on 23rd October 2025.
The Rose Field: The Book of Dust, Volume Three will be published simultaneously by David Fickling Books in association with Penguin Random House in the UK, and by Random House in the US. It will be illustrated by Chris Wormell, and the multi-award winning actor Michael Sheen will return to narrate the audiobook, also released on 23rd October 2025.
Marking thirty years since the world was first introduced to Pullman’s remarkable heroine Lyra Belacqua in Northern Lights (1995), The Rose Field is the culmination of the cultural phenomenon of The Book of Dust and His Dark Materials.
©️Janet – LoveBooksReadBooks
The conclusion of a cultural phenomenon that has captivated readers for thirty years
Thirty years ago, Pullman introduced Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pantalaimon in the pages of Northern Lights. Then eleven or twelve, she had already survived a flood – which readers would learn of in La Belle Sauvage, published in 2017 – and through two further books in the His Dark Materials trilogy: The Subtle Knife, published in 1997 and The Amber Spyglass published in 2000, she would go on to travel worlds, fulfilling her destiny as the Second Eve. She battled to bring an end to death. She experienced first love. And her adventures did not end with childhood. When readers last saw Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth, published in 2019, she was a young woman, separated from her daemon. She had travelled, risking everything, halfway across the world – on a dangerous quest.
The global cultural impact of Philip Pullman’s legacy as a storyteller cannot be underestimated: His Dark Materials and the first two volumes of The Book of Dust have sold more than 49 million copies in over 35 territories and inspired adaptations across stage and screen. La Belle Sauvage won the Waterstones Book of the Year and saw Pullman receive Author of the Year at both the British Book Awards 2018 and the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018.
The audio editions have similarly captured hearts, minds – and multiple awards. To mark the 30th anniversary, new audio editions of His Dark Materials have been released, narrated by Ruth Wilson, who starred as Mrs Coulter in the BBC adaptation. Michael Sheen narrated the first two volumes of The Book of Dust with La Belle Sauvagewinning ‘Audiobook of the Year’ at the British Book Awards 2018. There are also full cast recordings of His Dark Materials narrated by Philip Pullman himself.
“I think of The Rose Field as partly a thriller and partly a bildungsroman: a story of psychological, moral and emotional growth. But it’s also a vision. Lyra’s world is changing, just as ours is. The power over people’s lives once held by old institutions and governments is seeping away and reappearing in another form: that of money, capital, development, commerce, exchange.
Philip Pullman
Over a long and dangerous journey searching for her dæmon Pan and with him her lost imagination, Lyra comes to discover a new understanding of the world: that this change affects everything, from the way roads are built to the relationship people have with their deepest selves.
It may be other things too, but I hope that fundamentally and permanently The Rose Field will be read as a story. I think of myself a storyteller rather than a novelist or a writer of literary fiction, belonging among the tellers of folk tales, fairy tales, ballads and myths.”
Francesca Dow, Managing Director, Penguin Random House Children’s (UK):
“In the six years since The Secret Commonwealth was published, we know that hundreds of thousands of readers have been desperate to return – for the final time – to Lyra and her world. That wait will soon be over and from the first pages of The Rose Field, those readers will find that this world, and Lyra herself, are changing. This is storytelling at its most brilliant, set against a vast, extraordinary canvas, an intricate and most magical story about what it is to be human. It is also a gripping quest that surprises and delights at every twist and turn, a true page-turner. I could not put it down and I could not bear for it to end. Fans will love it, and new fans too, as they finally discover the answers to Lyra’s questions, on Dust, imagination, and love, as we meet old friends and make new ones along the way.
Readers around the globe will share in my belief: that we owe Philip Pullman – the storyteller of storytellers – our heartfelt thanks for giving us the opportunity to meet Lyra, and journey with her, and see her grow up into a fearless, and endlessly fascinating woman.”
David Fickling, Publisher and Editor, David Fickling Books:
“What do you want to write next?’ I asked Philip Pullman over a bangers and mash editorial lunch in 1995. Well, he said, I was thinking of setting a novel in the universe of John Milton author of Paradise Lost. I nodded as if that was perfectly normal and then he began quoting effortlessly, gloriously, from that great poem. I joined in as best I could and realised quickly that he wasn’t making a pitch or telling me about a mere book. He was showing me a vision, a vision of a universe.
Three thousand pages and thirty years later I realise without fear of contradiction that the publication of The Rose Field this autumn is a moment of cultural importance that reaches far beyond books. Pullman is a poet of story. He shows us a world brimming with wonder and possibility and what it is to be a human being. He gives us hope.”
Bea Carvalho, Head of Books at Waterstones, says:
“The arrival of the concluding volume of The Book of Dust is a highly momentous occasion for booksellers, bookshops, and readers everywhere: the highlight of our bookselling year and a moment which has been longed for since the release of The Secret Commonwealth six years ago. One would be hard pressed to dream up a publication which could be met with such anticipation. Across two trilogies and thirty years, Pullman has built an immense creative legacy, and the global cultural significance of this event extends far beyond the usual reach of book publishing.”
©️Janet – LoveBooksReadBooks
A first glimpse at The Rose Field: The Book of Dust Volume Three:
‘Lyra: what will you do when you find this place in the desert, the opening to the world of the roses?’
‘Defend it,’ Lyra said. ‘Die defending it.’
When readers left Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth she was alone, in the ruins of a deserted city. Pantalaimon had run from her – part of himself – in search of her imagination, which he believed she had lost. Lyra travelled across the world from her Oxford home in search of her dæmon. And Malcolm, loyal Malcolm, too journeyed far from home, towards the Silk Roads in search of Lyra…
In The Rose Field, their quests converge in the most dangerous, breathtaking and world-changing ways. They must take help from spies and thieves, gryphons and witches, old friends and new, learning all the while the depth and surprising truths of the alethiometer. All around them, the world is aflame – made terrifying by fear, power and greed.
As they move East, towards the red building that will reunite them and give them answers – on Dust, on the special roses, on imagination – so too does the Magisterium, at war against all that Lyra holds dear.
The Rose Field: The Book of Dust Volume Three will be published in hardback, trade paperback, ebook and audiobook on Thursday 23 October 2025 by David Fickling Books in association with Penguin Random House in the UK, featuring original new illustrations from Chris Wormell.
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The Book of Dust
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage Volume One and The Secret Commonwealth Volume Two are published by David Fickling Books in association with Penguin.
La Belle Sauvage (2017)
Malcolm Polstead’s Oxford life has been one of routine, ordinary even. He is happiest playing with his daemon, Asta, in their canoe, La Belle Sauvage. But now as the rain builds, the world around Malcolm and Asta is, it seems, set to become increasingly far from ordinary. Finding himself linked to a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm is forced to undertake the challenge of his life and to make a dangerous journey that will change him and Lyra for ever…
The Secret Commonwealth (2019)
Lyra Silvertongue is now a student at St Sophia’s College, Oxford, with her daemon Pantalaimon. They are not getting on. When an act of terrible violence breaks the peace ofthe Oxford night, Lyra and Pan’s relationship reaches a crisis and they are drawn, far from home, into the dangerous factions of a world they had no idea existed.
His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass are published in hardback, paperback and illustrated editions by Scholastic, with covers by Chris Wormell, and in ebook and audiobook by Penguin Random House.
Northern Lights (1995)
“Without this child, we shall all die.” Lyra Belacqua and her animal daemon live half-wild and carefree among scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. The destiny that awaits her will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight. Her extraordinary journey will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world.
The Subtle Knife (1997)
Will has just killed a man. He’s on the run. His escape will take him far beyond his own world, to the eerie disquiet of a deserted city, and to a girl, Lyra. Her fate is strangely linked to his own, and together they must find the most powerful weapon in all the worlds.
The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Will and Lyra, whose fates are bound together by powers beyond their own worlds, have been violently separated. But they must find each other, for ahead of them lies the greatest war that has ever been – and journey to a dark place from which no one has ever returned.
The Collectors – Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers (20 Sept. 2022)
A chilling Gothic tale with a revealing glimpse of the iconic Mrs. Coulter – one of Philip Pullman’s most enigmatic characters. This companion story to His Dark Materials is now in print for the first time in a beautiful gift edition.
In this darkly delicious tale, internationally acclaimed author Philip Pullman invites readers to meet the mysterious girl who will one day become the sinister Mrs. Coulter.
On a cold winter’s night, two art collectors are settled before a fire in the senior common room of a college in Oxford, discussing two new unusual pieces–a portrait of a striking young woman and a bronze sculpture of a fearsome monkey. How could they imagine that they are about to be caught in the cross-fire of a story that has traveled across time and worlds. . . .
The Author
Sir Philip Pullman
Sir Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, UK, in 1946 and educated in England, Zimbabwe, Australia and Wales. He read English at Exeter College, Oxford. After graduating, Pullman went into teaching, at various Oxford Middle Schools before moving to Westminster College in 1986 for eight years. He retains a passionate interest in education.
His first children’s book, Count Karlstein, was published in 1982 (later republished in 2002). It was followed by The Ruby in the Smoke (1986), the first in a quartet of books featuring the young Victorian adventurer, Sally Lockhart. He also published a number of shorter stories, which he calls fairy tales, including The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, Clockwork, I Was a Rat! and The Scarecrow and His Servant. To date, over 35 of Philip’s books have been published – read by children and adults alike – as well as graphic novels, plays, articles and many notable forewords and introductions to other works.
His most famous work is the His Dark Materials Trilogy: Northern Lights (1995, published as The Golden Compass in the USA); The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000). These books have been honoured by several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children’s Book Award, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award – the first time in the history of that prize that it was given to a children’s book. Pullman has received numerous other awards, including: the 2002 Eleanor Farjeon Award for children’s literature, and the 2005 Astrid Lindgren Award, jointly with the Japanese illustrator Ryoji Arai.
The first volume of The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage – was published in October 2017 to great acclaim, winning the Waterstones Book of the Year in December 2017, securing Pullman ‘Author of the Year’ at both the British Book Awards 2018 and the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018, and the audiobook – narrated by Michael Sheen – ‘Audiobook of the Year’ at the British Book Awards 2018. The second volume – The Secret Commonwealth – was published in October 2019.
Pullman was knighted for services to literature in the New Year’s Honours 2019.
Sir Philip Pullman lives in Oxford. Further information can be found at www.philip-pullman.com.
Publishers
David Fickling Books: DFB has been publishing worldwide bestselling books since 1999, with titles including modern classics The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Varjak Paw and Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust. DFB became fully independent in 2014 and works closely alongside their sister company, which publishes the ground-breaking weekly children’s comic The Phoenix. DFB’s imprint The Phoenix Comic Books is an industry leader, with Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey series regularly hitting the children’s bestseller charts on publication. DFB also publish a wide and eclectic range of fiction, non-fiction and picture books, and over the last few years have published Philip Pullman, SF Said, Candy Gourlay, Jamie Smart, Lisa Williamson, Philip Reeve, Sarah McIntyre, Lissa Evans, Melinda Salisbury, Chris Wormell and many other incredibly talented writers and illustrators.
Penguin Random House UK: Penguin is part of Penguin Random House, the world’s number one publisher. We champion authors, shaping and sharing writing that sparks thoughts, dreams, conversations and learning. We are a vibrant community of publishing houses, representing distinguished publishing histories marked by unparalleled success. We are a home to all kinds of authors. From the best new adult and young adult fiction or picture book writers, to political commentators, trailblazing entrepreneurs, health experts and bold illustrators, we enable talented people from all walks of life to tell their stories – and we make sure they are heard. We sell and license books in over 120 countries, connecting great books with a growing and global audience.
We bring words to life.
For more information, please visit our website www.penguin.co.uk
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