OXFORD author Philip Pullman will tomorrow launch the long-awaited first instalment of The Book of Dust.

He will be at the Bodleian’s Weston Library to launch La Belle Sauvage, the first book in a new trilogy.

The new tale, continuing the adventures of Lyra Belacqua, will be jointly published by David Fickling and publishing giant Penguin Random House Children’s Books, on Thursday.

The story takes place ten years before the events of the His Dark Materials trilogy, while the second and third instalments will pick up 20 years after the end of The Amber Spyglass, the final instalment of His Dark Materials.

Mr Pullman said earlier: “It’s not a prequel and it’s not a sequel - it’s an equal.”

The former Exeter College graduate, who went on to work as a teacher before starting his career writing children’s books, added: “The second instalment has been completed but not the third - I would have preferred to wait until all three were finished before the first one was published but that would have been too long to wait.

“There is a bit more noise than usual surrounding the publication of this book because people have had to wait such a long time for it.”

Waterstones in Oxford will be selling the new book from midnight on Wednesday.