Fire Down Below - (To the Ends of the Earth) by William Golding (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The final book in a classic series that began with the Man Booker Prize-winning Rites of Passage

An instant maritime classic, and one of Golding's finest achievements, the trilogy was adapted into a major BBC/PBS Masterpiece miniseries staring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jared Harris and Sam Neill.

To the Ends of the Earth, William Golding's great sea trilogy, presents the extraordinary story of a warship's troubled journey to Australia in the early 1800s. Told through the pages of Edmund Talbot's journal--with equal measure of wit and disdain--it records the mounting tensions and growing misfortunes aboard the ancient ship.

To the Ends of the Earth:
1. Rites of Passage
2. Close Quarters
3. Fire Down Below

Review Quotes

Praise for Rites of Passage

"Beautifully poised between comedy and dread...splendidly, elegantly phrased." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"It takes a special kind of genius to be able to recreate such convincing early 19th-century prose... A bravura display of writing skill." - The Guardian

"A first-rate historical novel that is also a novel of ideas--a taut, beautifully controlled short book with none of the windiness or costumed pageantry so often associated with fiction attempts to reanimate the past... [It is] the best of Golding's novels since Lord of the Flies." - The New York Review of Books

"As skillful and resonant as the best of William Golding's orther novels, which are among the best written by any Englishman these past twenty-five years." - The New York Times Book Review

"An extraordinary tour de force that has something in common with Melville's Billy Budd, Conrad's Nigger of the Narcissus and even Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner... Provides readers with still another instance of William Golding's virtuosity and moral stamina." - Philadelphia Inquirer

Praise for Close Quarters

"A work of ferocious energy, controlled with all the skill and cunning of a master. One eagerly awaits the final volume." - The Spectator

"The evocation of atmosphere and the depiction of a little floating world that is mortally stricken are superb... Deeply engrossing and written with the infinite care that one has come to expect of Golding." - Chicago Tribune

About the Author

William Golding (1911-93) was born in Cornwall, England. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954 and became an international bestseller. In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.