Resources

In The Inheritors Mal is the oldest member of the Neanderthal group.  At the beginning of the novel, he is clearly very frail but is […]

Rachel is the wife of Roger Mason, the master builder, The Spire. Dean Jocelin compares her unfavourably to Goody Pangall and thinks of her as […]

In The Spire, Pangall and his wife Goody live within the walls of the Cathedral in a cottage – Pangall’s Kingdom – which is being […]

Lady Alison is Jocelin’s aunt and principal benefactor in The Spire. She is a scandalous character, having conducted an affair with the king. As such, […]

In Free Fall, Sammy and his ‘Ma’ live on Rotten Row, ‘right in the heart of the Garden of England’; ‘a slum’ with a wooden […]

In The Spire, Goody is married to Pangall, the impotent servant of the cathedral.  At the beginning of the novel, she is described by Dean […]

Music is a major theme in some of Golding’s novels, particularly The Pyramid, but it also plays a minor, but important role in others, including Pincher Martin […]

Religion is a theme in many of Golding’s novels, including The Inheritors, The Spire and Darkness Visible.

Pincher Martin was adapted into a stunning opera by Oliver Rudland in 2014. Staged at the Royal College of Music, London, the opera combined music with […]

Golding’s biographer, John Carey, writes that Savernake Forest, on the outskirts of Marlborough,Wiltshire, was the inspiration for the setting of The Inheritors. Golding’s parents would take him […]

Fire burns through many of the novels.

The title story of The Scorpion God is set in Ancient Egypt and features the custom of the mummification of pharaohs. In his introduction to the new […]