Count Karlstein

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [vi], 165, [1]. Publisher's navy blue cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket illustration by Gavin Rowe (priced £5.50 net to front flap). The first UK printing by Chatto & Windus, published in 1982, and not to be confused with the 1991 Doubleday re-issue.

Signed by Author to title page. Ex-library, with a Shropshire County Library stamp to copyright page, evidence of label removal to front end-paper, spine tips and corners pushed-in, textblock edges dusty with some light foxing, else contents clean and bright, in a complete dustwrapper with some light creasing to edges.

Pullman's uncommon first children's book and third novel overall. Set in the early nineteenth century, when an evil Count draws up a contract with a Demon involving human sacrifice in order to obtain untold riches. Borrowing elements from Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz, and Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone, the story was originally written to be performed as a school play at Bishop Kirk Middle School, Oxford, where the author taught secondary pupils. "Dashing, sparkling and wildly over-the-top fun." –Publishers Weekly