in 1667, John Milton published Paradise Lost, which sought to “justify the ways of God to man”. Milton’s villain, the ultimate villain, really, was Satan, and his rebellion is marked by ambition and tragedy. Centuries later, just 30 years ago, Satan, the serpent and the idea of sin itself were rescued from their archetypes. And the “children’s books” that did so opened up a view of the world that questions rather than obeys, that confronts death rather than fears it. Philip Pullman’s magnum opus, the His Dark Materials trilogy — the first part was published in 1995 — that followed the adventures of Lyra Silvertongue (on the cusp of puberty) was The Rolling Stones to the more popular Beatles (the Harry Potter series). In the last decade, Pullman published another trilogy featuring Lyra, the

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