Northern Lights (novel)

Northern Lights (novel)

Northern Lights, known as The Golden Compass in North America, is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published by Scholastic UK in 1995. Set in a universe parallel to ours, it features the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned "uncle", Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust".

Northern Lights was the first book of a trilogy, His Dark Materials (1995 to 2000), and it inaugurated a longer, continuing series that is commonly called "His Dark Materials" too. Alfred A. Knopf published the first U.S. edition April 1996, entitled The Golden Compass. Under that title it has been adapted as a 2007 feature film by Hollywood and as a companion video game.

Pullman won the 1995 Carnegie Medal in Literature from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. For the 70th anniversary of the Medal, it was named one of the top ten winning works by a panel, composing the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. Northern Lights won the public vote from that shortlist and was thus named the all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" on 21 June 2007.