BIOGRAPHY
The winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature,
William Golding is among the most popular and influential British authors to
have emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Golding's reputation
rests primarily upon his first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954), which is
consistently regarded as an effective and disturbing portrayal of the fragility
of civilization.
Golding was born in Saint Columb Minor in Cornwall,
England, in 1911. His father, Alex, was a schoolmaster, while his mother,
Mildred, was active in the Women's Suffrage Movement (the movement for women's
right to vote). As a boy, his favorite authors included H. G. Wells
(1866–1946), Jules Verne (1828–1905), and Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950).
Since the age of seven, Golding had been writing stories, and at the age of
twelve he attempted to write a novel.
Golding remained an enthusiastic writer and, upon
entering Brasenose College of Oxford University, abandoned his plans to study
science, preferring to read English literature. At twenty-two, a year before
taking his degree in English, Golding saw his first literary work published—a
poetry collection simply titled Poems.
After graduating from Oxford in 1935, Golding
continued the family tradition by becoming a schoolmaster in Salisbury,
Wiltshire. His teaching career was interrupted in 1940, however, with the
outbreak of World War II (1939–45). Lieutenant Golding served five years in the
British Royal Navy and saw active duty in the North Atlantic, commanding a
rocket launching craft.
Golding had enhanced his knowledge of Greek history
and mythology by reading while at sea, and when he returned to his post at
Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1945, he began furthering his writing career. He
wrote three novels, all of which went unpublished. But his frustration would
not last long, when, in 1954, Golding created The Lord of the Flies. The
novel was rejected by twenty-one publishers before Faber & Faber accepted
the forty-three-year-old schoolmaster's book.
Initially, the tale of a group of schoolboys stranded
on an island during their escape from war received mixed reviews and sold only
modestly in its hardcover edition. But when the paperback edition was published
in 1959, thus making the book more accessible to students, the novel began to
sell briskly. Teachers, aware of the student interest and impressed by the
strong theme and symbolism of the work, began assigning Lord of the Flies
to their literature classes. As the novel's reputation grew, critics reacted by
drawing scholarly reviews out of what was previously dismissed as just another
adventure story.
The author's extremely productive output—five novels in
ten years—and the high quality of his work established him as one of the late
twentieth-century's most distinguished writers. This view of Golding was cemented in 1965, when the
author was named a Commander of the British Empire.
After the success of Lord of the Flies, Golding
enjoyed success with other novels, including Pincher Martin (1957), Free
Fall (1959), and The Pyramid (1967). The author's creative output
then dropped drastically. He produced no novels and only a handful of novellas
(short novels), short stories, and other occasional pieces.
In
1979 Golding returned with the publi cation of Darkness Visible which
received mixed reviews. The author faced his harshest criticism to date with
the publication of his 1984 novel The Paper Men, a drama about an aging, suc cessful novelist's
conflicts with his pushy, over-bearing biographer. Departing briefly from fic
tion, Golding wrote a book containing essays, reviews, and lectures. A
Moving Target appeared in 1982, one year prior to the author's receipt of
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
William Golding died in England in
1993. A year after his death, The Double Tongue was released, published
from a manu script Golding completed before he died.
Carey, John, ed. William Golding: The Man and His
Books; a Tribute on His 75th Birthday. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1987.
Friedman, Lawrence S. William Golding. New York:
Continuum, 1993.
Gindin, James. William Golding. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1988.
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