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Author

William Golding

1911–1993

11 fiction

William Golding was a British novelist, playwright and poet best known for examining civilisation, violence and human nature. Born in Cornwall in 1911, he studied at Oxford and served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, experiences that strongly influenced his view of human behaviour. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, became an international classic through its portrayal of schoolboys whose attempt to govern themselves collapses into fear and brutality.

Golding also wrote several works with historical or prehistoric settings, including The Inheritors, which imagines an encounter between Neanderthals and early modern humans, and the To the Ends of the Earth trilogy, set aboard a nineteenth-century emigrant ship. His fiction is characterised by symbolic narratives, moral ambiguity and an interest in the fragile boundary between social order and violence. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and was knighted in 1988.

Periods and events

Austerity Britain1945–1954 CE Battle of the Atlantic1939–1945 Georgian Empire and Atlantic World1714–1837 CE Hellenistic Greece323–146 BCE High Medievalc. 1000–1300 CE Imperial Rome27 BCE–476 CE Late Roman Republic133–27 BCE Medieval Cathedrals and Townsc. 1000–1500 CE Old Kingdom Egyptc. 2686–2181 BCE Prehistoryc. 3.3 million BCE–43 CE; ending varies by region Regency Era1811–1820 CE Roaring Twenties1920–1929 CE Royal Navy in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars1793–1815 CE The Blitz1940–1941 CE Wartime and Post-war London1939–1947 World War II1939–1945 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by William Golding (1 series)

To the Ends of the Earth in Order

by William Golding 3 books 3.9(506)

To the Ends of the Earth follows Edmund Talbot, a well-connected young Englishman travelling to take up a colonial appointment in Australia during the Napoleonic era. The three novels are set aboard an ageing former warship crowded with naval officers, sailors, soldiers, emigrants and servants. Talbot begins the…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by William Golding (8 books)

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