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Birth Date/Place/Parents
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. His mother, Mildred, was an active suffragette who fought for women’s right to vote. His father, Alex, worked as a schoolmaster. -
Education
William received his early education at the school his father ran, Marlborough Grammar School. A frustrated child, he found an outlet in bullying his peers. After primary school, William went on to attend Brasenose College at Oxford University. William opted to study English literature instead. In 1934, a year before he graduated, William published his first work, a book of poetry aptly entitled Poems. The collection was largely overlooked by critics.
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Career
From 1935 to 1939, Golding worked as a writer, actor, and producer with a small theater in an unfashionable part of London, paying his bills with a job as a social worker. He considered the theater his strongest literary influence, citing Greek tragedians and Shakespeare, rather than other novelists, as his primary influences.
In 1935 he started teaching English and philosophy in Salisbury at Bishop Wordsworth's School.
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Job
After college, Golding worked in settlement houses and the theater for a time. In 1935 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. Although passionate about teaching from day one, in 1940 Golding temporarily abandoned the profession to join the Royal Navy and fight in World War II.
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Marriage and Family
He married Ann Brookfield an analytical chemist, in 1939, with whom he had two children, Judith and David. -
Royal Navy
Golding spent the better part of the next six years on a boat, except for a seven-month stint in New York. During World War II, he fought battleships at the sinking of the Bismarck, and also fended off submarines and planes. Lieutenant Golding was even placed in command of a rocket-launching craft.
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After World War II
In 1945, after World War II had ended, Golding went back to teaching and writing.
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Lord of the Flies
In 1954, after 21 rejections, Golding published his first and most acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies.
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Job/Afterwards
In 1963, the year after Golding retired from teaching, Peter Brook made a film adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel. Two decades later, at the age of 73, Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1988 he was knighted by England’s Queen Elizabeth II.
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Film
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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Death
Golding died of a heart attack in Perranarworthal, Cornwall. After Golding died, his completed manuscript for The Double Tongue was published posthumously.