Rites of Passage: With an introduction by Robert McCrum

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Rites of Passage: With an introduction by Robert McCrum
Authors and Contributors      By (author) William Golding
Introduction by Robert McCrum
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:320
Dimensions(mm): Height 200,Width 125
Category/GenreHistorical fiction
ISBN/Barcode 9780571298549
ClassificationsDewey:823.914
Audience
General
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Professional & Vocational
Edition Main

Publishing Details

Publisher Faber & Faber
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publication Date 7 November 2013
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

With an introduction by Robert McCrum. The first volume of William Golding's Sea Trilogy. Sailing to Australia in the early years of the nineteenth century, Edmund Talbot keeps a journal to amuse his godfather back in England. Full of wit and disdain, he records the mounting tensions on the ancient, sinking warship where officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped spaces below decks. Then a single passenger, the obsequious Reverend Colley, attracts the animosity of the sailors, and in the seclusion of the fo'castle something happens to bring him into a 'hell of degradation', where shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself. 'The work of a master at the full stretch of his age and wisdom - necessary, provoking, urgent, rich, complex and rare.' - The Times 'An extraordinary novel.' - Observer 'Golding's best and most accessible story since Lord of the Flies.' - Melvyn Bragg

Author Biography

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. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954. 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.