William Golding Bio

Biography of William Golding Born in 1911 in Cornwall, England, Sir William Gerald Golding was educated at the Marlborough Grammar School, and later at Brasenose College, Oxford. Although he studied to be a scientist because of his father, he soon developed an interest in literature. At Oxford he studied English literature and philosophy. Following a short period of time in which he worked at a settlement house and in small theater companies as both an actor …

…literature "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today," and in 1988 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Sir William died in 1993 in Perranarworthal, Cornwall. At the time of his death he was working on an unfinished manuscript called The Double Tongue. It deals with the fall of Hellenic culture and the rise of Roman civilization.