Author William Golding tried to rape teenager, private papers show

The Nobel laureate Sir William Golding, whose novel Lord of the Flies turned notions of childhood innocence on their head, admitted in private papers that he had tried to rape a 15-year-old girl during his teenage years, it emerged today. Golding's papers also described how he had experimented, while a teacher at a public school, with setting boys against one another in the manner of Lord of the Flies, which tells the story of young air crash survivors on a desert island during a nuclear war. The revelations will appear in a forthcoming biography of the writer, who died in 1993 at the age of 81.

source: Article 'Author William Golding tried to rape teenager, private papers show'; www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/16/william-golding-attempted-rape; The Guardian; 16 August 2009