Introduction


William Golding
Imagine a man who embraced solitude as a child but who became famous for writing about group dynamics. Imagine a man who enjoyed the benefits of a peaceful adolescence, complete with private schooling, but who spent his adult years writing about the inherent violent nature of humans. Imagine a man who was groomed by his parents to be a scientist but who ended up as one of the greatest writers of his time. Imagine William Golding. Raised by educated parents who supported rational thought, Golding used his experiences from World War II to create novels of dark human action. Nothing in Golding’s past suggests that he should become the foremost author of the twentieth century to write about the conflict between barbaric human nature and civil reasoning; his novels, however, continue to entertain and raise those same questions today.

Essential Facts

  1. During his five-year military career, Golding was a participant in both the sinking of the great German battleship, the Bismarck, and in the allied invasion of Normandy.
  2. Golding’s most famous novel, The Lord of the Flies, was originally titled The Strangers Within and was published twenty-nine years before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
  3. Lord of the Flies was rejected by twenty-one publishers before acceptance by Faber and Faber.
  4. One of Golding’s hobbies was researching and exploring the myth of the Loch Ness monster.
  5. Golding was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
 

Recommended Resources

  1. Lord of the Flies Lesson Plans
  2. Lord of the Flies Study Guide (eNotes)
  3. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 1)
  4. William Golding - Magill’s Choice: Notable British Novelists

All Resources

Display as: Categories, List
  1. An Egyptian Journal - Book Review
  2. Close Quarters - Book Review
  3. Cyclopedia of World Authors
  4. Darkness Visible - Literary Characters
  5. Fire Down Below - Book Review
  6. Free Fall - Literary Characters
  7. Free Fall - Literary Places
  8. Lord of the Flies (1963)
  9. Lord of the Flies (1990)
  10. Lord of the Flies - Book Review
  11. Lord of the Flies - Censorship
  12. Lord of the Flies - Literary Characters
  13. Lord of the Flies - Literary Places
  14. Lord of the Flies - Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature
  15. Lord of the Flies Lesson Plans
  16. Lord of the Flies Study Guide (eNotes)
  17. Pincher Martin - Literary Characters
  18. Pincher Martin - Literary Places
  19. Rites of Passage - Literary Characters
  20. Rites of Passage - Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction
  21. Rites of Passage Sea Trilogy quickNotes
  22. The Double Tongue - Book Review
  23. The Fire Down Below - Book Review
  24. The Inheritors - Literary Characters
  25. The Inheritors - Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature
  26. The Oxford Companion to English Literature Article on William Golding
  27. The Paper Men - Literary Characters
  28. The Spire - Literary Characters
  29. The Spire - Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction
  30. The Spire quickNotes
  31. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism
  32. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 1)
  33. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 13)
  34. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 17)
  35. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 2)
  36. William Golding - Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 8)
  37. William Golding - Magill’s Choice: Notable British Novelists