10 Facts about Lord of the Flies Author William Golding

Famous for writing Lord of the Flies, British author William Golding was a complex man who struggled to repeat the success of his famous novel. A sailing accident also had a huge impact on his life.

1) Golding's family describes him as very funny, but a complicated and deeply self-loathing man.
2) Deeply affected by the war, he refused to look away from the darkness of everyday life. Some speculate that today he would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.
3) Golding found deep solace in the sea, and was a skilled sailor.
4) In July of 1967, Golding and his family were sailing to France when the boat struck a freighter. They were pulled to safety, but the ship was lost. He vowed to never to risk the lives of others at sea - he never sailed again.
5) The sinking of his ship marked the beginning of a very dark time in Golding's life, one filled with alcoholism and anger.
6) Devoted literary admirer, Virginia Tiger, caused great tension between Mr. and Mrs. Golding. There was a clear attraction between the two, though Virginia insists there was never an affair.
7) As Golding spiraled into crisis he began to have vivid dreams that he documented in a journal that spanned 20 years and more than two million words.
8) After his 1971 novel, The Scorpion God, Golding struggled to find his "magic" and wouldn't publish his next novel until 1979 - Darkness Visible was the novel he refused to talk about.
9) In 1980 Rites of Passage was released, which gathered Golding's inner conflicts and transformed them into a celebrated and Booker Prize-winning novel.
10) When writing came easily to Golding he described it as if the prose was flowing down his hand, his hand taking dictation from his unconscious.

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[kelman]

His nickname was 'scruff.'

The original title for Lord of the Flies was 'Strangers from Within', and was almost rejected by the firm that published it.

Darkness Visible took him almost 25 years to write.

Rites of Passage was written at the same time as Darkness Visible.

The Inheritors was Golding's favourite among his novels, and which his US publishers refused to release for many years.

[DennaJones]

Liked it, thank you but the shouty numbers ruin the flow.

[nakekarimkhan]

Hi mam give more information about Golding

[abebooks]

Thank you for the feedback, daisybush (the "shout out", heh) - perhaps we can tone down the numbers a bit in future.

[lulolancy]

I liked the book, but I love Beth more! My kind of woman.

[bayliswest]

There are some interesting things to learn about Golding here, but the presentation is distracting at best. It is not just the peculiar shouting of the numbers, the whole video, and the middle section particularly, sounds like a narrative arbitrarily chopped up into factoids to fit a predetermined format.