Close Quarters

by William Golding

Published 1 January 1987
Following Rites of Passage, this is second of Golding's Sea Trilogy. Half-way to Australia in a wilderness of heat, stillness and sea mists, a ball is held on a becalmed ship. In this surreal atmosphere the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them thickets of weed spread over the hull.

The Scorpion God

by William Golding

Published 1 January 1973

Lose yourself in ancient civilizations in these three historical novellas by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies.

Even when he leapt from the parapet he talked.


Ancient Egypt.
The Prince is set to marry Pretty Flower, his sister, in the Great House's incestuous society. But the Liar speaks a truth that transforms everything .

A primitive matriarchal society.
While mothers raise children in the bucolic Place of Women, Chimp is tormented by the Leopard Men in their brutal hunts, until he gains new wisdom .

Imperial Rome. In an era of invention and exploration, the emperor realises he loves his illegitimate grandson more than his own loutish heir .

'Communicates visionary ideas about the present and his imaginative understanding of our collective pasts.' Bettany Hughes

'Golding writes the past as present [with] uncanny skill and tremendous intuition.' Ben Okri

'Brilliant . So fluent and stylish that the stories read themselves like a dream.' Daily Telegraph

'Ingenious ... Perhaps the ambition of these books seems to put them a bit over the top, a bit out of their time.' London Review of Books


Fire Down Below

by William Golding

Published 21 June 1989
The final part of Golding's Sea Trilogy. A decrepit man-of-war is on the last stretch of its voyage to Sydney, blown off course and battered by wind, storm and ice. After a risky operation to reset its foremast with red-hot metal, an unseen fire is smouldering below decks.

Rites of Passage

by William Golding

Published 6 October 1980
In the cabin of an ancient, stinking warship bound for Australia, a man writes a journal to entertain his godfather back in England. With wit and disdain he records mounting tensions on board, as an obsequious clergyman attracts the animosity of the tyrannical captain and surly crew.