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William Golding was born in Cornwall, England. His mother was Mildred. His father was Alec, a school teacher, whose footprints William would soon follow.
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In 1935 he started teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury.
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The couple had married in 1939 and had two children, David (b. 1940) and Judith (b. 1945).
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He temporarily left teaching in 1940 to join the Royal Navy. 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.
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Two decades later, at the age of 73, Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature.
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In 1990 a new film version of the Lord of the Flies was released, bringing the book to the attention of a new generation of readers.
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Golding spent the last few years of his life quietly living with his wife, Ann Brookfield, at their house near Falmouth, Cornwall, where he continued to toil at his writing.
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On June 19, 1993, Golding died of a heart attack in Perranarworthal, Cornwall. After Golding died, his completed manuscript for The Double Tongue was published posthumously.
