

- Home
- Fiction
- Contemporary Fiction
- The Spire (Introduced by Benjamin Myers)
The Spire (Introduced by Benjamin Myers)
Succumb to a churchman’s apocalyptic vision in this prophetic tale by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Benjamin Myers.
7 in stock
We are temporarily only able to ship Faber Shop orders to addresses in the UK.
Succumb to a churchman’s apocalyptic vision in this prophetic tale by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Benjamin Myers (narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch as an audiobook).
There were three sorts of people. Those who ran, those who stayed, and those who were built in.
Dean Jocelin has a vision: that God has chosen him to erect a great spire. His master builder fearfully advises against it, for the old cathedral was miraculously built without foundations. But Jocelin is obsessed with fashioning his prayer in stone. As his halo of hair grows wilder and his dark angel darker, the spire rises octagon upon octagon, pinnacle by pinnacle, watched over by the gargoyles – until the stone pillars shriek, the earth beneath creeps, and the spire’s shadow falls like an axe on the medieval world below …
‘Astounding … So recklessly beautiful, so sad and so strange … Holds such a place in my soul that it’s more or less a sacred text.’ Sarah Perry
‘A kind of miracle … Genius.’ Guardian
‘A visionary … Golding at his best.’ Benjamin Myers
‘Quite simply, a marvel.’ NYRB
‘A superb tragedy … A classic.’ Rebecca West
‘A master fabulist .. An iconoclast.’ John Fowles
Astounding ... So recklessly beautiful, so sad and so strange ... Holds such a place in my soul that it's more or less a sacred text.
A kind of miracle ... Genius.
A visionary ... His masterwork [of] faith, folly and desperate desire ... Golding at his best.
A superb tragedy ... A classic.
A master fabulist .. An iconoclast.
Quite simply, a marvel.
William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential writers of modern times. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, has been read by millions, translated into more than forty-five languages, and adapted for screen and stage drama. He drew on his own experience as a teacher and his service in the…
Read More
Browse a selection of books we think you might also like, with genre matches and a few wildcards thrown in.

Read a brief extract from Rites of Passage, the first book in The Sea Trilogy awarded the Booker Prize in …

Read the opening passage of the novel Darkness Visible alongside an exclusive extract from William Golding’s journals.

Lord of the Flies is a classic work of fiction that continues to resonate through generations.

Behind the making of the covers for Pincher Martin, The Spire and The Inheritors by William Golding.

Faber is embarking on a major relaunch of William Golding’s novels to celebrate these radical modern classics by a visionary …

William Golding began writing Lord of the Flies in 1951, while he was a teacher at Bishop Wordsworth's School in …