William Golding

This new edition of Kevin McCarron’s study includes a new chapter on Golding’s posthumous book The Double Tongue, and so encompasses the whole of Golding’s novels. This is a comprehensive study, questioning Lord of the Flies’ status as Golding’s most popular and important work and giving prominence to The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, The Spire and The Sea Trilogy. McCarron takes an interdisciplinary approach, placing particular emphasis on the anthropological perspective missing from most critical texts on Golding’s writings. He also considers Golding’s work from the perspective of a number of critical approaches, including the postcolonial discourse, offering readers an alternative to the standard liberal humanist approach. An in-depth evaluation of Golding’s essays and travel journal provides new insight in the work of one of the 20th-century’s greatest writers.