Professor Virginia Tiger

Best known for the cruel moral vision of his novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding expressed the view that humanity was essentially religious, torn between the brutal realities of good and evil, yet filled with darkness and mystery. A Nobel Laureate, he also won the Booker Prize for the novel Rites of Passage.

Distinguished critic, Virginia Tiger, argues that his writings explore themes of vision, mystery, human sin and guilt. Drawing upon her own personal recollections of conversations with Golding and quoting from her correspondence with him, she shows how structure supports content in this extraordinary body of work. The only complete book to offer commentary on his entire literary oeuvre, including Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, Free Fall, The Spire, Darkness Visible, The Paper Men, Rites of Passage, Close Quarters, Fire Down Below and The Double Tongue.

Virginia Tiger is Professor of English at Rutgers University (Newark, New Jersey) and formerly its Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences, as well as a distinguished critic. She is the author of WILLIAM GOLDING: The Dark Fields of Discovery (Marion Boyars 1975), EVERYWOMAN (Randon House) and co-editor of DORIS LESSING CRITICAL STUDIES (G.K. Hall). She lives in New York.

Price: £12.95 / $19.95
Format: Trade paperback 400 pages
ISBN: 0-7145-3082-4
Fiction
Publication date: July 2003