Catching up with Chris Wormell, on the release of The Amber Spyglass.

This week has seen the release of the illustrated edition The Amber Spyglass, the final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy fully illustrated by Chris Wormell. With the trilogy complete we asked Chris a few questions to get his thoughts on the project as a whole.

This is the last book in His Dark Material’s trilogy, how does it feel to look back on all three illustrated editions as a collection?

It was a brilliant project to work on but hard work – long hours engraving printing and working on the computer for months and months on end: his last book has around 130 illustrations! But of course, given such an opportunity again, I’d accept the challenge in a flash. Such wonderful projects don’t come along often.

Were there any particular illustrations in The Amber Spyglass that really stood out to you, whether it was the content, or the characters or something else?

I think working on the images of Lyra and Will in the Land of the Dead was most memorable for me.

Has illustrating the series affected the way you think about the stories?

Not really. I thought they were fantastic stories when I first read them more than twenty years ago and still do. I know them in much greater detail now, of course; I’ve read them numerous times!