Clockwork

Tick tock! Tick tock! Some stories are like that. Once you’ve wound them up, nothing will stop them. A tormented apprentice clock-maker. A deadly mechanical knight in armour. The sinister Dr Kalmenius, whom some say is the devil. Wind up these characters, fit them into a story on a cold winter’s evening with the snow swirling down, and suddenly life and the story begin to merge in a macabre and unstoppable way. Almost like clockwork… Like a strange and wonderful machine, this intricate tale brings its own cogs together to recreate what happened in a little German town one long-ago night…

  • A dazzling, dark and intricately plotted short fairy tale
  • Swirls with snow, danger, drama and gothic atmosphere
  • Philip Pullman is the best-loved author of Northern Lights
  • He has won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Prize

“For those who want to read spooky stories this winter in front of a flickering fire, this story could hardly be bettered.” Independent

“Deeply satisfying and deserves to become a classic.” TES

“It has the feel of a classic fairy tale. It’s the most elegantly constructed, chilling story.” Jacqueline Wilson

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  • Photo of Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman is probably the world’s most acclaimed living children’s author, best known for the trilogy of books known as His Dark Materials.

    Awards

    Philip won the Nestle Smarties award for both Clockwork and The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Northern Lights was published in hardback in July 1995. That year, it won the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and was Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.

    The Amber Spyglass won WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year 2000 at the British Book Awards, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2001. Philip Pullman was voted Whitaker Author of the Year by the Booksellers Association. The Amber Spyglass went on to win both Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 and in doing so became the first children’s book to win the main prize in the award’s history.

    Philip has also been recognised with two major awards for his contribution to literature: the Eleanor Farjeon award in 2002, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize in 2005.

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