This Autumn will see the long-awaited publication of Le Belle Sauvage, the first volume of Philip Pullman’s new trilogy, The Book of Dust. Neither a prequel nor a sequel to his previous trilogy, the award-winning His Dark Materials, he describes it instead as an “equel”. La Belle Sauvage is set 10 years before Northern Lights and describes the early childhood of Lyra Belacqua, the chief character in His Dark Materials and in many ways a modern-day version of the Biblical Eve.