New Book Release: Philip Pullman and the Historical Imagination by Kristen Poole, PhD ‘96

Philip Pullman and the Historical Imagination: Seventeenth-Century Literature, Science, and Religion in His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust by Kristen Poole, PhD ’96, was released in April by Oxford University Press. Kristen is currently the Ned B. Allen Professor of English at the University of Delaware. A brief description of the book is included below: 

Readers of Philip Pullman’s trilogies His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust know that these novels speculate about parallel worlds and multiple spatial dimensions. But how do they also consider questions of time and history? Philip Pullman and the Historical Imagination explores how Pullman draws theoretical ideas and narrative modes from the fascinating period of early modern England. As a storyteller, Pullman takes up concerns about meaning, language, and interpretation in ways that echo various philosophies of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pullman’s curiosity about science and contemporary theoretical physics leads him to weave elements into his stories that bear striking parallels to various developments of the early scientific revolution. And as a writer keenly attuned to the poetics of John Milton and the narrative structures of Edmund Spenser, Pullman shares these authors’ investment in the sounds of language and the shape of plot and character. 

To learn more about the book or to purchase a copy, you can visit this page.