ABSTRACT
Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials is a steampunk, contemporary, parallel-world allohistory that prioritizes literary history over factual history in constructing the connected pasts of its parallel worlds. The presentation of an allohistoric Crisis of Faith as represented by an alloliterary portrayal of the Fall of Man allows Pullman to create an argument against the doctrines of the Church and for a culture of self-faith and acquired knowledge. The allohistorical elements of His Dark Materials would not be clearly illustrated if they were not superimposed on the literary elements of the trilogy. The presentation of defining the human condition and how it shapes the past, present, and future is at the very heart of steampunk. The imagined historical elements in neo-Victorian fictions are not limited to merely social and political constructs. The subtle nature of Pullman's use of the constructs of neo-Victorian fiction may be one reason that critics have often overlooked the trilogy as steampunk.
