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William Golding was born September 19, 1911, in Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England. He was raised in a 14th-century house next door to a graveyard.
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After college, Golding worked in settlement houses and the theater for a time. In 1935 he started teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury.
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Golding left teaching in 1940 to join the Royal Navy. While in the Royal Navy, Golding developed a lifelong romance with sailing and the sea.
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In 1954 he published his first novel, Lord of the Flies. Golding combined that perception of humanity with his years of experience with schoolboys.
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His 1980 novel Rites of Passage won the Booker Prize, a prestigious British award. Golding's greatest honor was being awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature.
