the next fortnight. However, Golding first had to attend a conference by 'COMES, the European community of writers' and, despite telling Monteith on 27 August that his revisions would be complete in the next ten days, William and Ann Golding went to Greece to meet Peter Green: an ex-journalist who had expatriated to Molyvos. After working on the novel in Greece, a frustrated Golding sent his next draft of The Spire to Monteith in October and was unsatisfied with his writing owing to an 'inner dispute between religion and reason'. This internal conflict occurred as Golding continued to return corrected typescripts and proofs but, though Golding had been feeling nervous since January, the novel was published on 10 April 1964. The typescripts for The Spire, along with a page of handwritten manuscript notes, can now be found in the University of Exeter's Special Collections archive, where they can be used for further research and study. Plot Jocelin, the Dean of the cathedral, directs the construction of a towering spire funded by his aunt, Lady Alison, a mistress of the former King. The project is carried on against the advice of many, and in particular the warnings of the master builder, Roger Mason. The cathedral has insufficient foundations to support a spire of the magnificence demanded by Jocelin, but he believes he has been chosen by God and given a vision to erect a great spire to exalt the town and to bring its people closer to God. As the novel progresses, Golding explores Jocelin's growing obsession with the completion of the spire, during which he is increasingly afflicted by pain in his spine (which the reader gradually comes to realise is the result of tuberculosis). Jocelin interprets the burning heat in his back as an angel, alternately comforting or punishing him depending on the warmth or pain he feels. Jocelin's obsession blinds him to reality as he neglects his duties as Dean, fails to pray and ignores the people who need him the most. The pit dug to explore the foundations at the Cathedral crossing becomes a place where chthonic forces surge, as the four tower pillars begin to 'sing'. Jocelin also struggles with his unacknowledged lust for Goody Pangall, the wife of the crippled and impotent cathedral servant, Pangall. Jocelin seems at first to see Goody as his daughter in God. However, as the novel progresses, and Goody's husband