Editing Philip Pullman (section)

==Early life and education==
Philip Pullman was born in [[Norwich]], England, the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman (née Merrifield) and [[Royal Air Force]] pilot [[Alfred Pullman|Alfred Outram Pullman]]. The family travelled with his father's job, including to [[Southern Rhodesia]], though most of his formative years were spent in [[Llanbedr]] in [[Ardudwy]], [[Wales]]. 

In 1954, when Pullman was seven, his father, an [[RAF]] pilot, was killed in a plane crash in [[Kenya Colony|Kenya]], being posthumously awarded the [[Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)|Distinguished Flying Cross]] (DFC). In an exchange with a journalist in 2008, Pullman said that, as a boy, he saw his father as "a hero, steeped in glamour, killed in action defending his country", and who had been "training pilots". Pullman was then presented with a report from ''[[The London Gazette]]'' of 1954 "which carried the official RAF news of the day [and] said that the medal was given for 'gallant and distinguished service' during the [[Mau Mau uprising]]." Responding to that new information, Pullman wrote: "My father probably doesn't come out of this with very much credit, judged by the standards of modern liberal progressive thought", and he accepted the revelation as "a serious challenge to his childhood memory."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Moreton |first1=Cole |title=Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/philip-pullman-his-dark-materials-834043.html |website=[[The Independent]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201082038/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/philip-pullman-his-dark-materials-834043.html |archive-date=1 December 2008 |url-status=dead |date=25 May 2008}}</ref> His mother remarried the following year and they moved to [[North Wales]]. He remembers her reading him ''[[Just So Stories]]'': "[[Kipling]]’s rhythms must have got into my memory". His favorite childhood book was [[Erich Kästner]]’s ''Emil and the Three Twins'', "which was the sequel to his great ''[[Emil and the Detectives]]''. It was only much later that I realised why that book had such a deep effect on me: like mine, Emil’s mother had been widowed, and he didn’t want her to marry again. I had no idea of the parallel then."<ref>{{cite news| title=Philip Pullman: 'I had to grow up before I could cope with Middlemarch'| work=[[The Guardian]]| date= December 23, 2022| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/23/philip-pullman-i-had-to-grow-up-before-i-could-cope-with-middlemarch}}</ref> Pullman discovered [[comics]], including [[Superman]] and [[Batman]], and continues to enjoy the medium, citing [[Hergé]]'s ''[[Adventures of Tintin]]'' as an influence.<ref name=HDM>{{cite book| title=[[His Dark Materials]]| last=Pullman| first=Philip| publisher=[[Everyman's Library]]}}</ref>{{rp|p=xxviii}} 

He attended [[Taverham Hall School]] and [[The Eaton House Group of Schools|Eaton House]] and, from 1957, was educated at [[Ysgol Ardudwy]] in [[Harlech]], [[Gwynedd]], spending time in [[Norfolk]] with his grandfather, a clergyman. When he was "twelve or thirteen" he heard older students reciting [[T. S. Eliot]]'s "[[Journey of the Magi]]": "It intoxicated me. That was one of the moments I realized [[poetry]] was going to be very important to me. It had a physical effect on me."<ref name=Jones>{{cite news| last=Jones| first=Terry| author-link=Terry Jones| title=Philip Pullman and Miss Jones| publisher=[[BBC]]| date=March 29, 2007| url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00775zz}}</ref> Poetry taught him that words have "weight and colour and taste and shape as well as meaning."<ref>{{cite magazine| last=Tatar| first=Maria| author-link=Maria Tatar | title=Philip Pullman's Twice-Told Tales| magazine=[[The New Yorker]]| date=November 12, 2012| url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/philip-pullmans-twice-told-tales#ixzz2CueT4YCo}}</ref> A few years later, Pullman discovered [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', which would become a major influence on ''[[His Dark Materials]]'': "I found, in that classroom so long ago, that it had the power to stir a physical response: my heart beat faster, the hair on my head stirred, my skin bristled. Ever since then, that has been my test for poetry, just as it was for [[A. E. Housman]], who dared not think of a line of poetry while he was shaving, in case he cut himself."<ref name="Paradise Lost">Pullman, Philip. Introduction. ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', [[John Milton]], [[Oxford University Press]], 2005</ref>{{rp|4}} Other influences include [[Homer]], [[Virgil]] and [[Dante]].<ref name=HDM/>{{rp|xvi}} 

As a teenager, he discovered [[Donald Allen]]’s ''[[The New American Poetry 1945-1960]]'': "This 1960 anthology burst into my life when I was 16 and changed the course of everything for me. [[Allen Ginsberg]]'s [[Howl (poem)| 'Howl']] was part of it; I had no idea poetry could do anything like that."<ref name=Poetry>{{cite news| title=Philip Pullman's 6 favorite books| work=[[The Week]]| url=https://theweek.com/articles/463978/philip-pullmans-6-favorite-books}}</ref> Ginsberg led him to [[William Blake]]: "My mind and my body reacted to certain lines from the ''[[Songs of Innocence and of Experience]]'', from ''[[The Marriage of Heaven and Hell]]'', from '[[Auguries of Innocence]]', from [[Europe a Prophecy|''Europe'']], from [[America a Prophecy| ''America'']] with the joyful immediacy of a flame leaping to meet a gas jet. What these things meant I didn’t quite know then, and I’m not sure I fully know now. There was no sober period of reflection, consideration, comparison, analysis: I didn’t have to work anything out. I knew they were true in the way I knew that I was alive."<ref>{{cite news| author=Philip Pullman| title=William Blake and me| date=November 28, 2014| work=[[The Guardian]]| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/philip-pullman-william-blake-and-me}}</ref> Influenced by [[Bob Dylan]], he wrote poems and songs ("Thank God none of them were recorded.")<ref name=Jones/>

From 1965, Pullman attended [[Exeter College, Oxford]], receiving a [[British undergraduate degree classification#Third Class honours|Third Class]] [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] in 1968.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cherwell.org/content/8873 |title=University of Oxford, Cherwell newspaper Interviews: Philip Pullman |access-date=2 August 2009 |date=2 September 2009 |publisher=Cherwell |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090613052154/http://www.cherwell.org/content/8873 |archive-date=13 June 2009}}</ref> In an interview with ''[[The Oxford Student]]'', he noted that he "did not really enjoy the English course", and that "I thought I was doing quite well until I came out with my third class degree and then I realised that I wasn't – it was the year they stopped giving fourth class degrees otherwise I'd have got one of those".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oxfordstudent.com/tt2006wk7/Features/growing_pains |title=Growing Pains – Features – The Oxford Student – Official Student Newspaper |access-date=29 March 2007 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216122358/http://www.oxfordstudent.com/tt2006wk7/Features/growing_pains |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref>

Pullman married Judith Speller in 1970 and they have two sons.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2007-11-30|title=Profile: Phillip Pullman|url=http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/30/film.books|access-date=2021-11-10|website=[[The Guardian]]|language=en}}</ref> At the time of his marriage he began teaching children aged 9 to 13 at Bishop Kirk Middle School in [[Summertown, Oxford|Summertown, North Oxford]], where he also wrote school plays. He recalls retelling classics for his students: "My real purpose in telling them stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we’ve got, which is ''[[The Iliad]]'' and ''[[The Odyssey]]''.<ref name=Grimm>{{cite news| last=Mechanic| first=Michael| title=His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman| work=[[Mother Jones (magazine)| Mother Jones]]| url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/11/interview-philip-pullman-grimm-fairy-tales-his-dark-materials-book-dust/}}</ref>