Author/Biography : William Golding (1911-1993)

Golding was born in St. Columb Minor in Cornall, England on September 19, 1911, to Alec A. and Mildred Golding. After being educated at Marlborough Grammar School where his father was a teacher, he studied the sciences for two years at Brasenose College, Oxford until abandoning science in favor of English language and literature, particularly that of the Anglo-Saxon period. After graduating Oxford in 1935 he worked in a London settlement house and devoted his spare time to …

…he shouts "thunderous great names like Euripides, Sophocles, and perhaps even Herodotus" because "his favorite reading is still Greek literature and history, in the original [language]." Indeed, his philosophy of human existence is one much closer rooted to the ancient Greeks than to any contemporary view. Until his death, it would seem, he continued this idea of "writing for himself"--the purpose for writing, Golding once said, is to help people "to understand their humanity."