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Birth
William Gerald Golding was born in Cornwall, England, in 1911. His mother was a supporter of the British suffragette movement and his father was a school teacher with a passion for science and an advocate of rationalism. -
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Education pt.1
He was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and attended Brasenose College at Oxford in 1930. Golding spent two years studying science but switched to the literature program in his third year, following his true interests. Golding had a passion for poetry, although his medium was commonly fiction novels. While at Oxford, many of Golding's poems were published as part of Macmillan's Contemporary Poets series. -
Education pt.2
In 1935, he graduated from Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a diploma in education. He also became devoted to Anglo-Saxon during this time. -
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Carrer
Golding worked as a writer, actor, and producer with a small theater, he was also a social worker. His admiration for Shakespeare and poetry grew during this time. In 1939,
Golding began teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury at Bishop Wordsworth's School (he taught there until 1962). -
Marriage
Married Ann Brookfield in 1939 -
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Navy
Golding temporarily abandoned teaching to join the Royal Navy and fight in World War II. The years spent in war made an enormous impact, exposing him to the cruelty and barbarity of which humankind is capable. Writing about his wartime experiences later, he asserted that "man produces evil, as a bee produces honey." -
Publication of The Lord of the Flies
Golding combined that perception of humanity with his years of experience with schoolboys. Although not the first novel he wrote, Lord of the Flies was the first to be published after having been rejected by 21 publishers. An examination of the duality of savagery and civilization in humanity. -
Retirement
William Golding retired from teaching in 1962 -
Film adaptation
Peter Brook made a film adaptation of the now critically acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies. -
Noble Prize Award
In 1983, William Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature ( the Nobel Prize in Literature 1983 was awarded to William Golding "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today" -
Death
On June 19, 1993, William Golding died of heart failure in Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England. After Golding died, his completed manuscript for The Double Tongue was published posthumously.