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William Golding was born
William Golding was born on September 19, 1911. In Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England. He was raised in a 14th-century house next door to a graveyard. -
A year before he graduated
William published his first work. William went on to attend Brasenose College at Oxford University. His father had hopes for him to become a scientist, but William opted to study English literature instead. He published his first work, a book of poetry aptly entitled Poems. -
He became a English and philosophy
Golding took a position teaching English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. Golding’s experience teaching unruly young boys would later serve as inspiration for his novel Lord of the Flies. -
William Golding fought in the World War II
He fought battleships at the sinking of the Bismarck, and also fended off submarines and planes. after World War II had ended, Golding went back to teaching and writing. -
William Golding published his first novel.
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. -
Pincher Martin
Navy lieutenant Christopher Martin is thrown from his ship during combat in World War II. He finds a rock to cling to, and the rest of the story is related from this vantage point, detailing his struggle for survival and recounting the details of his life -
Pincher Martin wrote his novel called Free Fall
Free Fall is told with a first person narrator, an artist named Samuel Mountjoy. The novel takes as a model Dante's La Vita Nuova, a collection of love poems interspersed with Dante's own commentary on the poems. Golding uses the character Mountjoy to comment on the conflict between rationalism and faith. -
The Spire
Dean of Barchester Cathedral decides that God wants a 400-foot-high spire added to the top of the cathedral, although the cathedral's foundation is not sufficient to hold the weight of the spire. The novel tells the story of the human costs of the spire's construction and the lessons that the Dean learns too late. -
Golding's next publication was a collection entitled The Scorpion God
Each story explores the negative repercussions of technological progress an idea that was in sharp contrast to the technology worship of the space age -
Golding died
The five years Golding spent in the navy (from 1940 to 1945) made an enormous impact, exposing him to the incredible cruelty and barbarity of which humankind is capable.
