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His Beginnings
William Gerald Golding was born in Cornwall, England, in 1911. His father, Alex, was a schoolmaster, while his mother, Mildred, was active in the Women's Suffrage Movement. (cliffnotes.com) -
First Novel
Golding's received his education at a prepatory school which his father ran, Marlborough Grammar School. When Golding had reached the age of twelve he had developed a passion for literature and so he attempted, unsuccessfully, to write a novel. (biography.com) -
Begins University
Golding was accepted into Oxford University at Brasenose College in 1930 and began by studying the sciences for two years to satisfy his father. However, in his third year, he changed to the writing program, initiating his lifelong career as a writer. (biography.com) -
Graduation Day
In 1935, he graduated Braonese College majoring in English and a diploma in education. His time spent at this elite university led to Golding writing several poems which he thoroughly despised. However, his poems held a certain value since they depicted his increasing distrust of the rationalistic ideas he had grown up with. He went as far as to mock well-known rationalists and their ideas.
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Teaching Experience
After graduating Golding found work in local settlement houses as well as theater for a period of time. Eventually, he opted to follow become a teacher much like his father. He then took a position teaching English and philosophy. His time spent there with the school boys later served as an inspiration for his novel, Lord of the Flies. (biography.com) -
World War II
In the year 1940, he decided to make a new turn in his life by abandoning his career as a teacher and joining the British Royal Navy to fight in the war. His experience in the war developed his passion for the sea. (biography.com) -
Lord of the Flies
In 1954 after 21 rejections he published his most acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies. (cliffnotes.com) The book's premise focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their attempt to govern themselves, with disastrous results. -
Movies
In 1963, one year after Golding had retired, a film was adapted from his critically acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies by Peter Brooke. Some time later another movie was developed in 1990 bringing the book to a new generation. -
Nobel Peace Prize
Two decades later, at the age of 73, Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature. This prestigious was awarded to him due to his accomplishments in writing including, The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), The Pyramid (1967), The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels (1971), Darkness Visible(1979), The Paper Men(1984), Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and finally Fire Down Below (1989). (cliffnotes.com) -
Awards and Recognition
His 1980 novel Rites of Passage won the Booker Prize, a prestigious British award in 1983, but Golding's greatest honor was being awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature. Some time later he was knighted by the queen in 1988. -
Death and Legacy
Golding spent the remainder of his life wih his family in particular his wife and two children at their house in Cornwall, where he continued to grow as a writer. Unfortunately, on June 19, 1993 Golding quietly passed away due to a heart attack and soon after his manuscript for the Double Tongue was published. (biography.com)
