To the Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy Comprising "Rites of Passage", "Close Quarters" and "Fire Down Below" - Softcover

Golding, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571166989 ISBN 13: 9780571166985

Publisher: Faber & Faber, Incorporated, 1992

Synopsis

This is a one-volume edition of the sequence of three novels set in the early 19th century, about a sea voyage from England to Australia. "Rites of Passage" won the Booker Prize.

About this title

About the Author:

William Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911 and was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before he became a schoolmaster he was an actor, a lecturer, a small-boat sailor and a musician. A now rare volume, Poems, appeared in 1934. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and saw action against battleships, and also took part in the pursuit of the Bismarck. He finished the war as a Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship, which was off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and was there when his first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954. He gave up teaching in 1961. Lord of the Flies was filmed by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding listed his hobbies as music, chess, sailing, archaeology and classical Greek (which he taught himself). Many of these subjects appear in his essay collections The Hot Gates and A Moving Target. He won the Booker Prize for his novel Rites of Passage in 1980, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988. He died at his home in the summer of 1993. The Double Tongue, a novel left in draft at his death, was published in June 1995., William Golding (1911-1993) was a Booker and Nobel Prize winning author, best known for his first novel, Lord of the Flies, published originally in 1954 and adapted for film in 1963. His other works include The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Rites of Passage (1980), The Double Tongue (published posthumously in 1995) a now rare volume, Poems (1934) and the essay collections The Hot Gates and A Moving Target.
Golding was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before his writing career, Golding was a schoolmaster. He was also a keen actor, musician and small-boat sailor.
In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Review:

"'[Rites of Passage] is the work of a master at the full stretch of his age and wisdom.' The Times; 'Laden to the waterline with a rich cargo of practicalities and poetry, pain and hilarity, drama and exaltation.' Sunday Times"

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber, Incorporated
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0571166989
• ISBN 13: 9780571166985
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 768