The Amber Spyglass
core novel 2000 His Dark Materials
Record
| First published | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.11 (391,200 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 465 |
| First-edition ISBN | 0590542443 |
Synopsis
The concluding volume of the original trilogy opens with Lyra held captive by her mother, Mrs Coulter, who has taken her into hiding away from both the Magisterium and Lord Asriel's growing rebellion. Will, now in possession of the subtle knife, resolves to find and free her, aided by two exiled angels who reveal to him the true scale of the conflict building across the worlds. As Lord Asriel gathers allies and weapons for a war against the ruling powers of the multiverse, and the Magisterium moves to eliminate Lyra because of a prophecy concerning her, Will and Lyra's search for each other becomes bound up with the fate of Dust, the alethiometer, and the amber spyglass that lets its user see Dust directly.
Where it sits
- Universe: His Dark Materials
- Series: His Dark Materials (trilogy) core; position 3 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Philip Pullman
Awards (verified)
- Whitbread Book of the Year (Overall (via Children's category)), 2001: won; First children's book to win the overall award.
Notes
- First children's book to win the overall Whitbread Book of the Year (2001).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series His Dark Materials (trilogy): position 3 of 3: previous The Subtle Knife (1997)
Sources
← His Dark Materials dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.