Primary and Secondary Worlds
Back to people overviewTerms originating with Tolkien: the Primary World is simply ‘this one’, or the world we live in, while a Secondary World is an imagined world into which the mind of the reader can enter.
Some imaginary worlds exist within a version of the Primary World, as with the island of Utopia; others, such as Narnia and Oz, exist somehow alongside it. Some Secondary Worlds – Middle-earth being the prime example – exist independently of our Primary World. Other works, such as the Rivers of London series and His Dark Materials, combine Primary and Secondary Worlds in subtle and compelling ways.
Image: Map from ‘Lyra’s Oxford’ (2003) ©Philip Pullman/John Lawrence. Image courtesy of Ex Carta
