i ii 3 THE GOLDEN COMPASS This book has been optimized for viewing at a monitor setting of 1024 x 768 pixels. iv Also by Philip Pullman v The Ruby in the Smoke Shadow in the North The Tiger in the Well Spring-Heeled Jack The Broken Bridge The White Mercedes The Tin Princess vi His Dark Materials Book One THE GOLDEN COMPASS Philip Pullman Alfred A. KNoPF New York THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. Copyright © 1995 by Philip Pullman Cover art copyright © 1996 by Eric Rohmann All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simulta- neously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Scholastic Children’s Books in 1995 under the title His Dark Materials1: Northern Lights. http://www.randomhouse.com/teens Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pullman, Philip. [Northern lights] The golden compass / by Philip Pullman p. cm. — (His dark materials) Originally published as: Northern lights. Summary: Accompanied by her dæmon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subjects of gruesome experiments in the Far North. [1. Missing persons—Experiments—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Arctic regions—Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title. II. Series: Pullman, Philip. His dark materials. PZ7.P968Go 1996 [Fic]—dc20 95-33397 eISBN 0-440-41860-7 v1.0 Into this wild abyss, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the almighty maker them ordain His dark materials to create more worlds, Into this wild abyss the wary fiend Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while, Pondering his voyage... —John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II