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Birth
Golding was born in Cornwall, England to his parents, Mildred and Alec. Mildred was a strong supporter of the British suffragette movement and his father, Alec, was a school teacher and an ardent advocate of rationalism. -
College
William started attending Brasenose College at Oxford in 1930. His first two years he spent studying science, but in his third year he changed his major to literature. -
Graduation
William graduated from college in 1935. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a diploma in education. -
Career and Marriage
Golding worked as a writer, actor, and producer with a small theater, and also worked as a social worker. He also married his wife, Ann Brookfield, and had two children. -
Military Years
Golding spent five years in the navy (1940-1945). It had exposed him to many new things such as all the horrible and barbaric nature humankind is capable of. -
First Publication
In Lord of the Flies was published in 1954. 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. -
Second Publication
He was a very quick and ambitious writer, so the following year he wrote and published, The Inheritors (1955). Although this novel is the one readers have the most difficulty understanding, it remained Golding's favorite throughout his life -
Third Publication
Golding was on a publishing streak. The following year he published Pincher Martin. It was a novel about detailing his struggle for survival and recounting the details of his life. -
His last Works
After his death in 1993 his finished manuscript, The Double Tongue, was published. It is a fictional memoir of an aged prophetess at Delphi, the most sacred oracle of ancient Greece, just prior to Greece's domination by the Roman Empire. -
Death
William Golding's life comes to an end. The cause was said to be a heart attack.