Count Karlstein, or The Ride of the Demon Huntsman, was Philip Pullman's first novel, published by Chatto in 1982. It is a wonderful gothic melodrama which he first wrote as a play for school-children when he was an English teacher. There followed several other novels for teenage readers, and then in 1989, Transworld commissioned Philip to write his first Doubleday book, a graphic novel called Spring-Heeled Jack. This was followed by a second graphic novel, this time based on Count Karlstein. Both graphic novels were well received. Phillip then went on to write the Northern Lights trilogy for David Fickling at Scholastic, and for Transworld The Firework-maker's Daughter, Clockwork, and I Was a Rat, and to win the Carnegie, Guardian, Smarties and, just recently, Whitbread awards. eanwhile, across the Atlantic, one of Philip's American publishers, Knopf, 'discovered' a copy of the original version of Count Karlstein (long since out of print) in a New York library. He approached Philip's agent in London and acquired the rights & they published in 1998. y now, sales of Philip's backlist titles with Transworld/RHCB had really taken off, and when just recently the opportunity arose to