About
William Golding

The author of Lord of the Flies wrote thirteen novels that have challenged, entertained and inspired readers for more than half a century.

William Golding is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and the coveted Booker Prize in 1980, Golding’s novels continue to reach audiences all around the world. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, is a literary phenomenon, selling over fifty million copies. All his books explore diverse imaginative worlds, spanning across time, reality and genres.

Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion and the luck of writers, prove to be the most powerful thing in the world.

William Golding

Life

Timeline

  • 1911

    William Golding is born in Newquay, Cornwall, in his grandmother’s house. Together with his parents Alec and Mildred Golding and his older brother, Jose, his home is in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where his father Alec is science master at the local grammar school.

  • late 1911

    Golding and his family move into 29 The Green, Marlborough, Wiltshire. It remains the home of Golding’s parents for the rest of their lives. As a child Golding is terrified by the house’s cellars and the adjacent graveyard next to the church. Alec Golding drew this picture of the house in 1945.

  • 1930

    Golding goes to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read science. He is the only grammar-school boy in the entire college.

  • 1932

    Golding gives up studying science. He later admits the choice of science had been undertaken to please his father. He changes to English and completes the course in two years, gaining a good second-class degree in 1934.

  • 1934

    Golding’s only collection of poetry, entitled Poems, is published by Macmillan. This is his first published book.

  • 1937

    Golding becomes a teacher at a Steiner school in south London, having failed to become an actor or make a living through music.

  • 1938

    Golding takes a post teaching at Maidstone Grammar school for boys. He joins in the musical life of the school and co-produces Julius Caesar.

  • 1939

    In September Golding marries Ann Brookfield in Maidstone, Kent. Ann becomes his most important critic and supporter throughout his lifetime.

  • 1940

    Ann gives birth to David, their first child.

  • late 1940

    Golding joins the Navy as an ordinary seaman following the outbreak of World War II. By 1942, he is an officer and is later involved in the D-Day landings and the Battle of Walcheren. He also spends a year in a weapons research establishment known as M.D. 1.

  • 1945

    Judy Golding is born. Judy is the author of a memoir about her father, The Children of Lovers.

  • late 1945

    Golding returns to his teaching job at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. His profession gives him an insight into the behaviour of school children. This is reflected in many of his novels.

  • 1952-1953

    Golding completes an early version of Lord of the Flies and begins to send it out to publishers. He faces numerous rejections until Charles Monteith, a new editor at Faber, takes an interest in September1953. The first version is lost, but the manuscript survives.

  • 1954

    In September Golding’s debut novel, Lord of the Flies, is published by Faber and Faber. It is dedicated to his mother and father. The book receives good reviews and decent sales.

  • 1955

    The Inheritors, Golding’s favourite of all his books, is published, and dedicated to Ann. The most poetic of Golding’s novels, it is an elegiac narrative of an encounter between a family of Neanderthals – gentle and trusting — and a group of Homo sapiens, who are infinitely better equipped to survive, and so to inherit.

  • 1956

    Faber and Faber publish Pincher Martin. Ostensibly a novel of survival at sea, it is a profound exploration of the individual will, determined to survive against all odds.

  • 1958

    Golding’s father Alec dies in December. Golding himself described this loss as ‘like the side of a cliff falling away’. He later acknowledged that he had wept more tears over Alec than over anyone else.

  • 1959

    Golding’s fourth novel, Free Fall, is published. The book is heavily influenced by his experience in World War II. It also contains a portrait of his father, including a description of his last days in hospital. The novel was first written in linear form, but Golding later re-organises it, so that the narrative moves back and forth in time. In it Golding explores the concept of individual freedom and the existence of two worlds: the material and the spiritual. Golding’s own schooldays at Marlborough Grammar School are used to illustrate this divide.

  • 1961

    Golding is invited to be writer in residence at Hollins College, a women’s college in Virginia, USA. He and Ann leave the UK in September, returning the following July. Lewis Thompson, resident artist at Hollins, does a brilliant portrait of Golding (pictured). Following the success of his writing career, Golding is confident enough to resign his teaching job. In the US, Lord of the Flies is becoming hugely popular, particularly with young people, and Golding is invited to give many lectures at American universities.

  • 1963

    Peter Brook’s film adaptation of Lord of the Flies is released. It is considered a masterpiece and Golding is astonished by the film.

  • 1964

    Publication of The Spire, dedicated to Golding’s daughter Judy. The novel was inspired by Salisbury Cathedral, a building that fascinated Golding. Set in the fourteenth century, it describes the process whereby an individual, convinced that God has chosen him for an impossible task, ruthlessly enables the building of a spire on a cathedral – a building which may or may not have foundations. Golding believed the novel was one of his best. However, it was savaged by some critics, resulting in Golding losing confidence.

  • 1967

    Publication of The Pyramid, dedicated to Golding’s son David. The book is loosely based on some of Golding’s experiences in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where he himself grew up, and David spent much of his first five years. The book is candid about the mistakes and cruelties individuals commit, and many of these are probably autobiographical. It also brings Golding’s love of music to the fore, nevertheless showing that this too can be distorted and ruined by human cruelty and desire for power.

  • 1971

    The Scorpion God, a collection of three novellas, is published. The stories have very different settings, portraying a matriarchal society in prehistory, a highly evolved society in Ancient Egypt, and finally a story set in Imperial Rome.

  • 1971–1978

    This period marks a time of crisis for Golding. He is affected by writer’s block and suffers periods of ill health, as well as drinking heavily. He begins writing his unpublished journals in October 1971, beginning it as a dream journal. Some months after starting, he writes an explanatory essay entitled ‘History of a Crisis’.

  • 1979

    Darkness Visible is published. Golding always refuses to discuss this novel in public. It is awarded the James Tait Black Prize.

  • 1980

    Faber publishes Golding’s Rites of Passage, the first instalment in The Sea Trilogy. The book is hugely popular and introduces Golding as a darkly funny writer. Ostensibly the novel is the diary of a young man from an aristocratic family, sailing to Australia with a shipload of very diverse characters. Golding is awarded the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage. In his report on the prize, W L Webb of the Guardian calls Golding the ‘Lord of the novel’ and opines that Rites of Passage shows him at the ‘height of his powers’.

  • 1983

    Golding is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the presentation made by King Carl XVI Gustav, who tells Golding he had to do Lord of the Flies at school. His Nobel lecture is included in a new, paperback edition of his second essay collection, A Moving Target (1984).

  • 1984

    The Paper Men is published. This book reflects some of the feelings Golding had towards his reviewers and critics. A first-person narrator, a novelist who drinks too much and is filled with self-loathing, is pursued by a young would-be biographer, in a struggle that threatens them both.

  • 1985

    Golding and his wife Ann leave their house in Bowerchalke, Wiltshire, where they had lived since 1958 (and briefly in 1940). They move to a beautiful Georgian house in Cornwall called Tullimaar (pictured). The house is surrounded by wonderful gardens. They enjoy the place enormously and spend some intensely happy years there.

  • 1987

    Close Quarters, the second instalment of The Sea Trilogy, is published. In it the hero falls in love, and Golding admitted that Marion Chumley, the young woman in question, was in part based on his wife Ann, pictured here in 1937.

  • 1988

    In the summer of this year William Golding is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

  • 1989

    Fire Down Below, the final part of The Sea Trilogy is published, the last of Golding’s novels released in his lifetime. It brings the hero to Australia and to a good future. But an enigmatic dream shows that he has been affected and changed by the voyage, and by his companions.

  • June 1993

    William Golding dies of heart failure at his home in Cornwall and is buried in the churchyard at Bowerchalke, Wiltshire.

  • Nov 1993

    At a memorial service in November 1993, held in Salisbury Cathedral (pictured), Ted Hughes reads unforgettably from The Inheritors.

  • 1995

    On New Year’s Day, Golding’s widow Ann dies. In May his longtime editor Charles Monteith dies. On 19 June, the second anniversary of Golding’s death, his final novel, The Double Tongue, is published posthumously, and is dedicated by the Golding family to Charles.