Philip Pullman Books in Order

Philip Pullman spent twenty years writing well-reviewed novels almost nobody bought - the Sally Lockhart Victorian thrillers among them - before His Dark Materials made him the most famous children's writer alive and the most public atheist antagonist of Narnia. The universe then doubled: The Book of Dust, which he calls an equel - neither sequel nor prequel - finished in October 2025 with The Rose Field. He is a public fighter on library funding and authors' pay, and his shelf is one of the few where a spin-off trilogy genuinely completed while the fandom watched. This page maps all of it (1985–present).

Where to start

Northern Lights (1995), the door. The Ruby in the Smoke (1985) if you want the earlier, smaller Pullman first.

Does the reading order matter?

The universes, in the order that works. His Dark Materials first - the dedicated page on this site maps it - because everything else orbits it. Then The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (2017), The Secret Commonwealth (2019), The Rose Field (2025), complete. The Sally Lockhart quartet (1985-1994) is its own Victorian thing, fine in publication order, and the best of the pre-fame shelf. Around the big two: the fairy-tale novels - Clockwork (1996), I Was a Rat (1999), The Scarecrow and His Servant (2004) - and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010), the most direct statement of the argument His Dark Materials makes in story. Daemon Voices (2017) collects his essays on storytelling. Skip nothing on the Lockhart shelf; start it after the universes

Which one is the best?

Northern Lights (1995); The Amber Spyglass (2000); The Ruby in the Smoke (1985), the pre-fame best.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: His Dark Materials books in order, Chronicles of Narnia books in order, Lewis Carroll books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.