The Rose Field, page 62
Like as a ship, that through the Ocean wide
Directs her course vnto one certain cost,
Is met of many a counter winde and tyde,
With which her winged speed is let and crost,
And she herself in stormy surges tost;
Yet making many a bord, and many a bay,
Still winneth way, ne had her compasse lost:
Right so it fares with me in this long way,
Whose course is often stayd, yet neuer is astray.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI XII 1
The End
Acknowledgments
The debts I owe to these people, and to many more who will have to remain unnamed till I find their names in my notes and files, are uncountable and in some cases lifelong. To list them all and express my gratitude in full would take up more paper than the story does. I was going to note which of these friends is no longer alive, but as that list grew longer I changed my mind about it: they are still alive in my memory, all of them, and their influence remains.
Andrew Parker, Anthony Hinton, Bill Laar, Brian Mountford, Caradoc King, Carlo Rovelli, Caro Fickling, Chiara Marletto, Chris Wormell, Christine Baker, David Deutsch, David Fickling, David Sturgeon, Dinah Birch, Enid Jones, Eryl Williams, Glyn Williams, Gordon Dennis, Graham Chainey, Heidi Lightfoot, Helen Cooper, Iain McGilchrist, Ian Beck, James Hawes, Jonathan Kingdon, Jude Pullman, Julia Bruce, Kristen Poole, Laurie Frost, Liz Cross, Merfyn Jones, Millie Hoskins, Nancy Siscoe, Neil Philip, Peter Bailey, Philip Goff, Richard Eeles, Ronald Arnold, Rosie Fickling, Rowan Williams, Ruth Knowles, Sue Cook, Suzie Sheehy, Tim Brighouse, Tony Merrifield. At the beginning of this book, we meet briefly the character Nur Huda el-Wahabi, whom we met in The Secret Commonwealth and whose name I borrowed, at the request of those close to her, to commemorate one of the victims of the appalling fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017.
© Michael Leckie
Philip Pullman is one of the most acclaimed writers working today. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, which has been named one of the top 100 books of all time by Newsweek and one of the all-time greatest novels by Entertainment Weekly. Pullman was knighted for services to literature in the New Year Honours 2019.
The Book of Dust, Pullman’s spectacular return to the world of His Dark Materials, is also a book in three parts: La Belle Sauvage, The Secret Commonwealth, and The Rose Field.
Philip Pullman is the author of many other much-loved novels. For younger readers: I Was a Rat!, Count Karlstein, Two Crafty Criminals!, Spring-Heeled Jack, and The Scarecrow and His Servant. For older readers: the Sally Lockhart quartet (The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, The Tiger in the Well, and The Tin Princess), The White Mercedes, and The Broken Bridge. He has also written a magnificent collection, Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, and his essays and speeches on writing have been gathered in a volume called Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling.
Philip Pullman lives in Oxford, England.
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Philip Pullman, The Rose Field
