Rites of Passage
          In the cabin of an ancient, stinking warship bound for Australia, a man writes a journal to entertain his godfather back in England. With wit and disdain he records mounting tensions on board, as an obsequious clergyman attracts the animosity of the tyrannical captain and surly crew.

Close Quarters
          Edmund Talbot, introduced to us in the earlier volume, Rites of Passage, continues his slow voyage to Australia in an old naval ship of the line. Against the odds, he successfully learns lessons about — and from – love and life, in an enforced and cramped exposure to varied men and women, within the formal framework and discipline of the early nineteenth century Royal Navy, the other hero of the book.

Fire Down Below
          The narrator, Edmund Talbot, is a young English aristocrat sailing on a decrepit, converted warship as it struggles toward Australia, where he is to take up a position in the colonial administration. FIRE DOWN BELOW, is, first, an exciting adventure story: Danger is constant, and Golding’s depictions of the perils of storms and of icebergs, and of the indignities and deprivations of the sailor’s life, are so exact and so evocative that readers will probably feel thankful that they are safely anchored on dry land.