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William Golding
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Fire Down Below: A Novel (To the Ends of the Earth, 3) Paperback – December 1, 1999

by William Golding (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 80 ratings
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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

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Previous page
  1. Book 2 of 2
    Sea Trilogy
  2. Print length
    313 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  5. Publication date
    December 1, 1999
  6. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.72 x 8.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0374526389
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0374526382
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition (December 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 313 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374526389
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374526382
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.72 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 80 ratings

About the author

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William Golding

William Golding

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Born in Cornwall, England, William Golding started writing at the age of seven. Though he studied natural sciences at Oxford to please his parents, he also studied English and published his first book, a collection of poems, before finishing college. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, participating in the Normandy invasion. Golding's other novels include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, The Free Fall, Pincher Martin, The Double Tongue, and Rites of Passage, which won the Booker Prize.

Photo by See page for author [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
80 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Serena
5.0 out of 5 stars Benedict ran around in my head
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2014
Verified Purchase
I purchased this trilogy after trying to watch Benedict Cumberbatch in the DVD version. While he is beautiful to watch,I often floundered with the plot as I had trouble understanding the British accent, language of the time, and "Tarpaulin", which is a kind of sailors' language. Having the experience of seeing Benedict in the role of Edmund Talbot enhanced the reading of this extraordinary trilogy. I fell in love with these books and was so sad to read the last page. So thank you Benedict Cumberbatch for opening a whole new world for me. I'm now voraciously devouring all of William Golding's works, ever the sweeter having been forced to read "Lord of the Flies" in high school many years ago.
2 people found this helpful
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Richard S
4.0 out of 5 stars NO PORT IN A STORM
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2015
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This is the final installment of Golding's "Sea Trilogy," the first two being "Rites of Passage" and "Close Quarters." Like those books, this volume is narrated - in the form of a journal - by Edmund Talbot, a young man of the British upper class traveling from England to Australia, where he has an "entry level" position awaiting him in the local government. Since it is 1813 or 1814 the only way to get there is by sea, a voyage that ends up taking nearly a year. The sailing ship is old and breaking apart by the start of this part of the saga. It is by no means certain that it will reach its destination (although, because we are reading Edmund's journal, we - the readers - assume that he makes it to Sydney in the end.) Along the way, the ship encounters awful dangers: terrifying storms, huge icebergs, etc. Also, because the means to measure longitude has not yet been invented, no one seems to know where the ship actually is much of the time! Food and water are running out, since the voyage has taken much longer than anticipated. In the end, though, this story, as in the books that preceded it, is about the education of Edmund Talbot, who begins this voyage quite ignorant of the ways of men and the world. His experiences shatter his preconceptions about men and women from other classes than his own, for one thing, and in the course of the voyage we observe his transformation from self-regarding, entitled youth to something else - manhood, perhaps. Edmund's friendship with the ship's first officer, Charles Summers, and his growing appreciation of an unusual couple, Mr. and Mrs. Prettiman, give this rather bleak story a much-needed warm heart. I gave the first two books each five stars. This one I gave four, mainly because it doesn't hold up very well as a self-contained story. An interested reader should really start at the beginning, with "Rites of Passage." Highly recommended.

p.s. A wonderful filmed version of these books was produced for the BBC a few years ago. Edmund is played - superbly - by Benedict Cumberbatch. The DVD is available under the title "To the Ends of the Earth."
2 people found this helpful
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advance
3.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy three separate volumes
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2018
Verified Purchase
I bought each of the volumes and the kindle versions have a lot of empty space in the pages so each volume is actually shorter than the page numbers indicate. In hindsight its easy to see that the 3 in 1 version is the one to buy. It's not an epic and even one of the characters remarks that it is simply, "A series of events." The reviews that I've seen try to give the whole thing more credit than it deserves.
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Jason Adams
4.0 out of 5 stars Odds and ends to complete a story
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2018
“Fire Down Below” concludes the “To the Ends of the Earth” trilogy. In it we learn the fates of most of the characters and crew our young naïf Edmund Talbot has associated himself with over his extended voyage to a colonial posting in Australia. Sparing the high allegory of the first novel or the hazy teenage antics of the second, the third and concluding novel focuses on the evolution of Talbot’s character through his interactions with the officers and fellow passengers of the crippled hulk bearing them across the sea. The latter portion of the novel takes on the quality of hazy memory, and the story becomes an unlikely fantasy as the tricky knots of shipboard relationships resolve themselves. Talbot’s fate in particular led me to wonder if perhaps an earlier event had actually destroyed the ship and the rest of the novel the dream of a dying man. Either way, I get the sense that Golding felt compelled to round out the story, and the small moments and large terrors work together to create a ripping yarn of one man’s rites of passage.
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An admirer of Saul
4.0 out of 5 stars Journey's End
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2013
The final part of Golding's sea trilogy, and the ship endures raging sea's and ice berg's as it makes its arduous journey to Australia. Benet conceives a plan to shore up the mainmast by heating a metal brace around its shoe, a plan that succeeds but drives further tensions amongst the factions on board. On landing, Edmund Talbot begins his new life and-as fate would have it- he is reacquainted with Miss Chumley....
An unusually happy and rounded ending for Golding in what is arguably the lesser of the three novels. It leaves with the idea of man's eternal search for himself as well as the ever unobtainable Utopia. 'Rites of Passage' is the stand out novel of the three. If you don't want to partake in the whole journey, that one alone is the one to read.
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Elisabeth B. Butler
4.0 out of 5 stars duplicate
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2007
I returned this book because it is included in "To the Ends of the Earth".
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Andrew Forbes (andrew.forbes1@kvaerner.com)
3.0 out of 5 stars 3rd part of trilogy and doesn't stand alone
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 1999
Wonderful prose, beautifully observed character study, as WG slips into the skin of an extremely priggish and snobbish early twenties aristocrat as he comes of age and begins to understand a little more of the virtues of the ordinary people around him. Sea journeys of that era were long, tedious, largely uneventful and extremely uncomfortable. All 3 books in the trilogy carry this perfectly: the maritime atmosphere is conveyed as perfectly as the arrogant character of the narrator. However, the tedium of the journey also comes across in the virtually non-existent plot which makes the books drag on somewhat. It is probably, though, as brilliant description of the English class system at the start of the 19th century as you will read. I believe that the books in Trilogies should be able to stand alone, if they are to be sold separately, & on that basis, this trilogy definitely fails. I'm glad I read it as a single 750 page tome.
8 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

david gardner
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2024
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This is a masterpiece. I recommend it to any of my acquaintances bold enough to embark on a journey of of the trials of a mixed up but likeable young fool, trying to find himself in a world of contradictions.
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cindy
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2016
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GOOD BOOK
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