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William Golding

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William Golding 1983

William Golding (1911-1993) in 1983. Courtesy Dutch National Archives and Wikimedia Commons.

William Golding
Born William Gerald Golding
September 19 1911(1911-Template:MONTHNUMBER-19)
Newquay, Cornwall, England, UK
Died June 19 1993(1993-Template:MONTHNUMBER-19) (aged 81)
Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England, UK
Occupation Writer of novels, plays and poems
Nationality United Kingdom British
Genres survivalist fiction, robinsonade, adventure, sea story, science fiction, essay, historical fictio, stageplay, poetry
Notable work(s) Lord of the Flies
Notable award(s) Booker Prize (1980); Nobel Prize in Literature (1983)
Signature File:William Golding signature.jpg

Sir William Gerald Golding CBE (19 September 1911 - 19 June 1993) was an English poet, novelist, and playwright, best known for his debut novel, Lord of the Flies.

Life[]

Youth[]

Golding was born in his grandmother's house, 47 Mountwise, St Columb Minor,[1] Cornwall[2] and he spent many childhood holidays there.

He grew up at his family home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where his father (Alec Golding) was a science master at Marlborough Grammar School (1905 to retirement). Alec Golding was a socialist with a strong commitment to scientific rationalism, and the young Golding and his elder brother Joseph attended the school where his father taught.[3] His mother, Mildred (Curnroe),[4] kept house at 29, The Green, Marlborough, and supported the moderate campaigners for female suffrage.

In 1930 Golding went to Oxford University as an undergraduate at Brasenose College, where he read Natural Sciences for 2 years before transferring to English literature.[5] Golding took a B.A. (Hons) Second Class in the summer of 1934, and later that year his debut collection, Poems, was published in London by Macmillan, through the help of his Oxford friend, anthroposophist Adam Bittleston.

Marriage and family[]

Golding married Ann Brookfield, an analytic chemist,[6](p161) on 30 September 1939 and they had 2 children, Judith and David.[2]

War service[]

William Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940.[7] During World War II, he fought on board a destroyer, briefly involved in the pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. He also participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, commanding a landing ship that fired salvoes of rockets onto the beaches, and then in a naval action at Walcheren in which 23 out of 24 assault craft were sunk.[8] At the war's end, he returned to teaching and writing.[2]

Career[]

In September 1953, Golding sent a manuscript to Faber & Faber of London. Initially rejected by a reader there, the book was championed by Charles Monteith, then a new editor at the firm. He asked for various cuts in the text and the novel was published in September 1954 as Lord of the Flies. It was shortly followed by other novels, including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and Free Fall.

Publishing success made it possible for Golding to resign his teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1961, and he spent that academic year in the United States as writer in residence at Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia. Having moved in 1958 from Salisbury to nearby Bowerchalke, he met his fellow villager and walking companion James Lovelock. The 2 discussed Lovelock's hypothesis that the living matter of the planet Earth functions like a single organism, and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after Gaia, the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology.(Citation needed)

In 1970, Golding was a candidate for the Chancellorship of the University of Kent at Canterbury, but lost to the politician and leader of the Liberal Party Jo Grimond.

The ONDB asserts that "At the end of the twentieth century, Golding's reputation was at its highest in continental Europe, particularly in Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France".[9]

Death[]

In 1985, Golding and his wife moved to Tullimaar House at Perranarworthal, near Truro, Cornwall, where he died of heart failure 8 years later, on 19 June 1993.(Citation needed) He was buried in the village churchyard at Bowerchalke, South Wiltshire (near the Hampshire and Dorset county boundaries). He left the draft of a novel, The Double Tongue, set in ancient Delphi, which was published posthumously.[10][11] He is survived by his daughter, the author Judy Golding, and his son David, who still lives at Tullimaar House.

Golding's later novels include Darkness Visible (1979), The Paper Men (1984), and the comic-historical sea trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, comprising the Booker Prize-winning Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989).

Writing[]

Fiction[]

William_Golding_-_1950s_Interview

William Golding - 1950s Interview

Golding's often allegorical fiction makes broad use of allusions to classical literature, mythology, and Christian symbolism. No distinct thread unites his novels (unless it be a fundamental pessimism about humanity), and the subject matter and technique vary. However his novels are often set in closed communities such as islands, villages, monasteries, groups of hunter-gatherers, ships at sea or a pharaoh's court.

His debut novel, Lord of the Flies (1954), dealt with an unsuccessful struggle against barbarism and war, thus showing the moral ambiguity and fragility of civilization. It has also been said that it is an allegory of World War II.

The Inheritors (1955) looked back into prehistory, advancing the thesis that humankind's evolutionary ancestors, "the new people" (generally identified with Homo sapiens sapiens), triumphed over a gentler race (generally identified with Neanderthals) as much by violence and deceit as by natural superiority.

The Spire (1964) follows the building (and near collapse) of a huge spire onto a mediæval cathedral church (generally assumed to be Salisbury Cathedral); the church and the spire itself act as a potent symbols both of the dean's highest spiritual aspirations and of his worldly vanities.

His 1956 novel Pincher Martin concerns the last moments of a sailor thrown into the north Atlantic after his ship is attacked. The structure is echoed by that of the later Booker Prize winner by Yann Martel, Life of Pi.

Golding's 1967 novel The Pyramid comprises 3 separate stories linked by a common setting (a small English town in the 1920s) and narrator. The Scorpion God (1971) is a volume of 3 novellas set in a prehistoric African hunter-gatherer band ('Clonk, Clonk'), an ancient Egyptian court ('The Scorpion God') and the court of a Roman emperor ('Envoy Extraordinary'). The last of these is a reworking of his 1958 play The Brass Butterfly.

Recognition[]

Golding won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1979, and was awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the 1st book of the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth.

In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, a choice which was, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "an unexpected and even contentious choice, with most English critics and academics favoring Graham Greene or Anthony Burgess".[9]

Golding was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire,[12] and in 1988 was appointed a Knight Bachelor.[13]

In popular culture[]

Lord_of_the_Flies_1990_-_Trailer

Lord of the Flies 1990 - Trailer

There have been 2 film adaptations of Lord of the Flies: a black-and-white movie directed by Peter Brook released in 1963, and a 1990 color adaptation directed by Harry Hook.[14]

Lord of the Flies was adapted by Nigel Williams into a play, originally performed in 1995.

In 2008, The Times ranked Golding 3rd on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[15]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

Play[]

  • The Brass Butterfly: A play in three acts. New York & Chicago: Dramatic Publishing, 1957; London: Faber, 1958.

Novels[]

  • Lord of the Flies. London: Faber, 1954; New York: Putnam, 1954.
  • The Inheritors. London: Faber, 1955; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1955.
  • Pincher Martin. London: Faber, 1956; New York: Putnam, 1956.
  • Free Fall. London: Faber, 1959; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1959.
  • The Spire. London: Faber, 1964; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964.
  • The Pyramid. London: Faber, 1967; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967.
  • The Scorpion God: Three short novels. London: Faber, 1971; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
  • Darkness Visible. London: Faber, 1979; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1979.
  • The Paper Men. London: Faber, 1984; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984.
  • The Double Tongue London: Faber, 1995; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1995.

To the Ends of the Earth trilogy[]

  • Rites of Passage. London: Faber, 1980; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1980.
  • Close Quarters. London: Faber, 1987; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1987.
  • Fire Down Below. London: Faber, 1989; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1989.
  • To the Ends of the Earth: A sea trilogy. London: Faber, 1991; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1991.

Non-fiction[]

  • The Hot Gates, and other occasional pieces. London: Faber, 1965; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965.
  • A Moving Target. London: Faber, 1982; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1982.
  • An Egyptian Journal. London & Boston: Faber, 1985.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[16]

Unpublished works[]

  • Seahorse was written in 1948. It is a biographical account of sailing on the south coast of England while in training for D-Day.[17]
  • Circle Under the Sea is an adventure novel about a writer who sails to discover archaeological treasures off the coast of the Scilly Isles.[18]
  • Short Measure is a novel set in a British boarding school.[19]

See also[]

References[]

  • Carey, John (2009). William Golding:The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-8732-6. 
  • L.L. Dickson, The Modern Allegories of William Golding (University of South Florida Press, 1990). ISBN 0-8130-0971-5
  • R.A. Gekoski & P.A. Grogan, William Golding: A Bibliography, London, André Deutsch, 1994. ISBN 978-0-233-98611-1
  • "Boys Armed with Sticks: William Golding's Lord of the Flies." Chapter in B. Schoene-Harwood. Writing Men. Edinburgh University Press, 2000.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ "General Logon Page". Ic.galegroup.com. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&action=e&catId=GALE%7CNUIWHS509465048&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK1631002582. Retrieved 2013-01-31. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Kevin McCarron, ‘Golding, Sir William Gerald (1911–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 13 Nov 2007
  3. ↑ (Which should not be confused with Marlborough College, the nearby "public" boarding school).
  4. ↑ Biography of William Golding | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays. GradeSaver. Retrieved on 2012-07-28.
  5. ↑ Carey, pp. 41, 49
  6. ↑ Harold Bloom (2008). William Golding's Lord of the flies; Bloom's modern critical interpretations. Infobase Publishing. pp. 161–165. ISBN 0-7910-9826-5. 
  7. ↑ Raychel Haugrud Reiff, William Golding: Lord of the Flies, page 58 (Marshall Cavendish, 2010). ISBN 978-0-7614-4276-9
  8. ↑ Mortimer, John (1986). Character Parts. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-008959-4. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Kevin McCarron, ‘Golding, Sir William Gerald (1911–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 accessed 15 May 2011
  10. ↑ Bruce Lambert (20 June 1993). "William Golding Is Dead at 81; The Author of 'Lord of the Flies'". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0919.html. Retrieved 6 September 2007. 
  11. ↑ Golding, William (1996). The Double Tongue. London: Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-17803-2. 
  12. ↑ William Golding: Awards. William Golding.co.uk. Retrieved 17 June 2012
  13. ↑ Template:London Gazette
  14. ↑ Nicola Presley, "Film adaptations of Lord of the Flies," WilliamGolding.co.uk., January 23, 2011. Web, Apr. 25, 2020.
  15. ↑ The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. The Times (5 January 2008). Retrieved on 1 February 2010.
  16. ↑ Search results = au:William Golding, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Aug. 27, 2014.
  17. ↑ Carey, p. 130
  18. ↑ Carey, p. 137
  19. ↑ Carey, p. 142

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