Beyond His Dark Materials

Susan Redington Bobby is an associate professor of English at Wesley College. She is the editor of Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings (McFarland, 2009), the author of Beyond His Dark Materials: Innocence and Experience in the Fiction of Philip Pullman (McFarland 2012), and the author of a critical essay in the His Dark Materials Casebook (Palgrave 2014).

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Introduction: Embracing Change, Loss and Growth on the Path from Innocence to Experience      Part I: Stories of Innocence: The Quest and the Path to Maturity      1. Mossycoat, Puss in Boots and Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp: Fairy Tale and Folktale Re-visions      2. The Firework-Maker’s Daughter and The Scarecrow and His Servant: Quest-Driven Tales      3. Count Karlstein, or The Ride of the Demon Huntsman: The Influence of German Romanticism and the Gothic on an Evolving Text      4. Spring-Heeled Jack and The New Cut Gang: Thunderbolt’s Waxwork and The Gas-Fitters’ Ball: Narratives of Orphaned, Displaced, and Dispossessed Children      Part II: Stories of Experience: Betrayal and the Path to Maturity      5. The Sally Lockhart Quartet: Socially-Conscious Penny Dreadfuls      6. I Was a Rat! and How to Be Cool: The Intersection of Fantasy and Realism Through Social Satire      7. The Broken Bridge and The White Mercedes: The Impact of the Sins of the Father (and Mother) in Young Adult Contemporary Novels      8. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ: A New Path from Innocence to Experience      Chapter Notes      Bibliography      Index

“Invites scholarly consideration of Pullman’s lesser-known fictions, long overshadowed by the His Dark Materials series…ambitious…thorough and engaging…upon finishing this book, the reader will have a complete picture of Pullman’s oeuvre, his characters, his plot trajectories, and his themes.”—Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts; “With more than a nod to William Blake, this book is divided into two sections: the first, Stories of Innocence, examines those of Pullman’s stories, especially reimagined fairy tales, which deal with more innocent characters and are written for youthful audiences; the second, Stories of Experience, deals with those stories in which the characters face difficulties and deeper sufferings, and is especially focused on novels and retellings of biblical stories.”—Reference & Research Book News