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William Golding was born on September 19, 1911, in Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England.
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William received his early education at the school his father ran, Marlborough Grammar School. When William was just 12 years old, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to write a novel. A frustrated child, he found an outlet in bullying his peers. Later in life, William would describe his childhood self as a brat, even going so far as to say, “I enjoyed hurting people.”
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Golding began attending Brasenose College at Oxford in 1930 and spent two years studying science, in deference to his father's beliefs. In his third year, however, he switched to the literature program, following his true interests. Although his ultimate medium was fiction, from an early age, Golding dreamed of writing poetry.
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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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From 1935 to 1939, Golding worked as a writer, actor, and producer with a small theater in an unfashionable part of London, paying his bills with a job as a social worker. He considered the theater his strongest literary influence, citing Greek tragedians and Shakespeare, rather than other novelists, as his primary influences
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In 1935, he graduated from Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a diploma in education.
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Eventually, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and in 1935 Golding took a position teaching English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. He also temporarily abandoned the profession to join the Royal Navy to fight at WWII
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Golding spent the better part of the next six years on a boat. While in the Royal Navy, Golding developed a lifelong romance with sailing and the sea. Of his World War II experiences, Golding has said, “I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.”
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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. Lord of the Flies explored the savage side of human nature as the boys, let loose from the constraints of society, brutally turned against one another in the face of an imagined enemy.
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On June 19, 1993, Golding died of a heart attack in Perranarworthal, Cornwall.