Rites Of Passage (with An Introduction By Robert Mccrum)

By (author) William Golding; By (author) Golding, William; Introduction by McCrum Robert
Short description/annotation
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.
Description
Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in this Booker Prize-winning novel: the first in the acclaimed Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies. I grow a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon . . . Edmund Talbot is sailing to Australia in the early nineteenth century. In his journal, he records mounting tensions aboard the ancient, stinking warship, as officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped darkness below decks. But when something happens to Reverend Colley that brings him into a ''hell of self-degradation'', it seems that shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself . . . To The Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy - Book One ''It is the emotional veracity of life at sea that powers Golding''s exceptional writing ... The fury, mystery and challenge of life on board.'' Kate Mosse ''Golding writes the past as present [with] uncanny skill and tremendous intuition.'' Ben Okri ''A master at the full stretch of his age and wisdom - necessary, provoking, urgent, rich, complex and rare.'' The Times ''Golding''s best and most accessible story since Lord of the Flies.'' Melvyn Bragg ''An extraordinary novel.'' Observer To The Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy - Book One
Biographical note
William Golding (1911 - 1993) was born in Cornwall and educated in Marlborough and Oxford. Before becoming a writer, he was an actor, lecturer, small-boat sailor, musician and schoolteacher. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and took part in the D-Day operation and invasion of Holland. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was rejected by several publishers but rescued from the ''slush pile'' at Faber and published in 1954. It became a modern classic selling millions of copies, translated into 35 languages and made into a film by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding wrote eleven other novels, a play and two essay collections. He won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993. www.william-golding.co.uk
Promotional headline
Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in this Booker Prize-winning novel: the first in the acclaimed Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies.