Nobel Prize winning author Sir William Gerald Golding (1911 - 1993) is best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. However he was also awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980, for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book of the historic naval fiction trilogy To the Ends of the Earth.
During World War II, he fought in the Royal Navy and was briefly involved in the pursuit and sinking of the battleship Bismarck.
The trilogy presents the extraordinary story of a warship's troubled journey to Australia in the early 1800s. Told through the pages of Edmund Talbolt's journal--with equal measure of wit and disdain--it records the mounting tensions and growing misfortunes aboard the ancient ship.
AOS Naval Fiction |
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| Series: To the Ends of the Earth | ||
| Year | Book | Comment |
| Rites of Passage | Edmund Talbot begins a journal to amuse his god-father, full of wit and disdain he chronicles the mounting tensions on the ancient warship, and their deadly resolution. | |
| Close Quarters | Stuck in the doldrums, the passengers half-mad with fear and drink; as a ball is held, the ship begins to come apart at the seams. | |
| Fire Down Below | Patched up, battered by wind, storm and ice the ship is blown off course - and then a fire begins to smoulder below decks. | |
| Omnibus editions | ||
| To the Ends of the Earth | Rites of Passage, Close Quarters, Fire Down Below | |