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He was raised in a 14th-century house next door to a graveyard.
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William Golding was born September 19, 1911, in Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England.
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In 1934, a year before he graduated, William published his first work, a book of poetry aptly entitled Poems. The collection was largely overlooked by critics.
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1935 he started teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury. He temporarily left teaching in 1940 to join the Royal Navy.
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In 1935 Golding took a position teaching English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury
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Golding spent the better part of the next six years on a boat, except for a seven-month stint in New York, where he assisted Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research Establishment.
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In 1954, after 21 rejections, Golding published his first and most acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies. The novel told the gripping story of a group of adolescent boys stranded on a deserted island after a plane wreck.
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In 1963, the year after Golding retired from teaching, Peter Brook made a film adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel. Two decades later, at the age of 73, Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1988 he was knighted by England’s Queen Elizabeth II.
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On June 19, 1993, he died in Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England.