Lyra is then introduced to Mrs Coulter in formal terms by the Master and is offered the opportunity to leave Oxford to become Mrs Coulter's assistant.

The character of Marisa Coulter and her malicious monkey-dæmon are introduced as being responsible. Around this time, word is spreading about children mysteriously disappearing, leading to the urban legend of Gobblers. Soon, life takes a serious turn when she and Pantalaimon prevent an assassination attempt on Lord Asriel and also overhear a secret conversation about Dust, a mysterious entity. Lyra lives at Jordan College and spends her time half-wild, half-civilized, happy and carefree with her friend, Roger Parslow, a kitchen boy - they roam around the streets of Oxford, waging 'wars' with the children of other colleges (usually young servants and the children of servants), as well as the brick-burners' children and the children of the gyptians. Adults, such as Lord Asriel and the Master of Jordan College, have dæmons whose form has settled, best exemplifying some part of the person's character (Asriel has Stelmaria, an independent and powerful snow-leopard-dæmon, and the Master has an old raven-dæmon). Lyra's dæmon, Pantalaimon, can change shape as all children's can. Most unique and important to the story is that in Lyra's world, every human person has an animal familiar called a dæmon which is an external manifestation of their soul. Early on it becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not the Oxford of our world, but a world in which history has taken a number of alternate routes leading to subtle changes, for example use of the word ' anbaric' instead of 'electric', but also unfamiliar peculiarities, for example a unique species of polar bear having developed opposable thumbs, sentience and a rich cultural tradition on the remote archipelago of Svalbard. The story is divided into three parts, the first, ' Oxford', opening with eleven-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua hiding in the Retiring Room in Jordan College.

It provides the source of the series title His Dark Materials. This quote precedes the table of contents as well as the title page of the book. Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while, His dark materials to create more worlds, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,īut all these in their pregnant causes mixedĬonfusedly, and which thus must ever fight, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,

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