Once Upon a Time in the North
A prequel novella about the meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby.
Once Upon a Time in the North is a 2008 novella by Philip Pullman that serves as a prequel to his His Dark Materials trilogy. The story recounts the first meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby. An extract appeared in The Guardian on 22 March 2008, and the book launched on 31 March at the Oxford Literary Festival.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Philip Pullman
- Cover artist
- John Lawrence
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Fantasy; Western short story
- Publisher
- David Fickling Books, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
- Released
- United Kingdom:
- 3 April 2008
- United States:
- 22 April 2008
- Australia:
- 1 May 2008
- Format
- Print (Hardback)
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Lee Scoresby, a 24-year-old Texan aeronaut, and his jackrabbit dæmon Hester land roughly in Novy Odense, a Muscovite harbour town on an island in the White Sea. After storing his balloon, Lee notices bears in the town, some working, others loitering. In a bar, he meets journalist Oskar Siggurdson, who explains that an election for mayor is approaching. The favourite, Ivan Dimitrovich Poliakov, campaigns against the bears, which Siggurdson calls worthless vagrants. Lee learns the bears are intelligent, speak, and make armour, but local law forbids them wearing it in town. Lee then intervenes to stop a barkeeper beating a Dutch captain, van Breda, whose ship is stuck in harbour without loading permission. Lee and van Breda are thrown out.
Extras
The limited edition includes several extras. A board game called Peril of the Pole appears, mentioned in the story. A newspaper article by Oskar Siggurdson presents Lee and Iorek as villains and states the incidents reinforce Poliakov's belief about bear dangers. Two pages from The Elements of Aerial Navigation, a book Lee won with the balloon, are included; Lee has only the first half. A page from The Shipping World Year Book contains an entry on Novy Odense. Two letters from Lyra Silvertongue at St Sophia's College, Oxford, address Tom and Dr. Polstead about her MPhil dissertation in Economic History, one version titled "Developments of patterns of trade in the European Arctic region with particular reference to independent balloon carriage (1950–1970)". Lyra also mentions continuing to study the alethiometer. The certificate for submission of Lyra's dissertation is also present.
More in Narrative Arcs & Timeline
Elsewhere in His Dark Materials
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