46 Facts About Philip Pullman

Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman was born on 19 October 1946 and is an English writer.

Philip Pullman's books include the fantasy trilogy Philip Pullman's Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictionalised biography of Jesus.

Philip Pullman was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, England, the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman and Royal Air Force pilot Alfred Outram Pullman.

In 1954, when Philip Pullman was seven, his father, an RAF pilot, was killed in a plane crash in Kenya, being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Philip Pullman's mother remarried the following year and, following a move to North Wales, Pullman discovered comic books, including Superman and Batman, a medium which he continues to enjoy.

Around that time, Philip Pullman discovered John Milton's Paradise Lost, which would become a major influence for His Dark Materials.

From 1965, Philip Pullman attended Exeter College, Oxford, receiving a Third-class BA in 1968.

Philip Pullman discovered William Blake's illustrations around 1970, which would influence him greatly.

Philip Pullman married Judith Speller in 1970 and they have two sons.

Philip Pullman's first published work was The Haunted Storm, which was joint-winner of the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972, but which he refuses to discuss.

Philip Pullman stopped teaching shortly after the publication of his second children's book, The Ruby in the Smoke, which has a Victorian setting.

Between 1988 and 1996, Philip Pullman taught part-time at Westminster College, Oxford, continuing to write children's stories.

Philip Pullman continues to deliver talks and writes occasionally for The Guardian, including writing and lecturing about education, in which he is often critical of unimaginative education policies.

Philip Pullman was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2004.

Philip Pullman co-judged the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2005 with Gillian Clarke.

In 2004 Philip Pullman guest-edited The Mays Anthology, a collection of new writing from students at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

In 2005, Philip Pullman won the annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, recognising his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense".

On 23 November 2007, Philip Pullman was made an honorary professor at Bangor University.

Philip Pullman is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.

In 2012, during a break from writing The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman was asked by Penguin Classics to curate 50 of Grimms' classic fairytales, from their compendium of over 200 stories.

Philip Pullman was named a Knight Bachelor in the 2019 New Year's Honours list.

Philip Pullman's Dark Materials is a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

Philip Pullman has written two companion pieces to the trilogy, Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North.

Philip Pullman refers to a third, which will expand his character Will Parry, as the "green book".

Philip Pullman has said that the new series is neither sequel, nor prequel, but an "equel".

Philip Pullman has narrated unabridged audiobooks of the three novels in the His Dark Materials trilogy; the other parts are read by actors, including Jo Wyatt, Steven Webb, Peter England, Stephen Thorne and Douglas Blackwell.

Philip Pullman has been a vocal campaigner on a number of issues related to books and politics.

Philip Pullman has praised fantasy authors like Alan Garner and Neil Gaiman.

Philip Pullman believes that children deserve quality literature, and that there isn't a clear demarcation between children's and adult literature.

Philip Pullman is an admirer of Leon Garfield, "someone who put the best of his imagination into everything he wrote", particularly praising The Pleasure Garden.

In 2002, to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, Philip Pullman was interviewed for a feature in The Guardian on notable republicans.

Philip Pullman has a strong commitment to traditional British civil liberties and is noted for his criticism of growing state authority and government encroachment into everyday life.

In October 2011, Philip Pullman backed a campaign to stop 600 library closures in England, calling it a "war against stupidity".

In January 2016, Philip Pullman resigned as patron of the Oxford Literary Festival after five years, saying that its continued refusal to pay authors fees for appearing as guest speakers at the event placed him in an "awkward position" because it conflicted with his presidency of the Society of Authors, which campaigns for authors to be paid for appearing at book festivals.

In January 2020, Philip Pullman called for literate people to boycott the newly minted Brexit 50p coin due to the omission of the Oxford comma in its slogan "Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations".

Philip Pullman has referred to himself as knowingly "of the Devil's party", a reference to William Blake's revisionist view of Milton in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Philip Pullman is a supporter of Humanists UK and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.

Alan Jacobs said that in His Dark Materials Philip Pullman replaced the theist world-view of John Milton's Paradise Lost with a Rousseauist one.

Philip Pullman was flattered and asked his publisher to include quotes from Caldecott's article in his next book.

Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia; Philip Pullman has criticised the Narnia books as religious propaganda.

However, he was more critical of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, accusing Philip Pullman of being a "Protestant atheist" for supporting the teachings of Christ but being critical of organised religion.

Philip Pullman has found support from some Christians, most notably Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who argued that Philip Pullman's attacks focus on the constraints and dangers of dogmatism and the use of religion to oppress, not on Christianity itself.

Williams recommended His Dark Materials for discussion in Religious Education classes, and said that "to see large school-parties in the audience of the Philip Pullman plays at the National Theatre is vastly encouraging".

Philip Pullman reiterated that it was useless to "become censorious about [religion], to say there is no God".

Philip Pullman mentioned that his novel, The Book of Dust, is based on the "extreme danger of putting power into the hands of those who believe in some absolute creed, whether that is Christianity or Islam or Marxism".