Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic.

Runner-up for The BBC Big Read Top 100 2003

“" Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. That was a big influence on me as a teenager, I still read it every couple of years." --Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games "As exciting, relevant, and thought-provoking now as it was when Golding published it in 1954." -- Stephen King "The most influential novel...since Salinger's Catcher in the Rye ." --Time "This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return (in a few weeks) to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge. Fully to succeed, a fantasy must approach very close to reality. Lord of the Flies does. It must also be superbly written. It is." --The New York Times Book Review "Sparely and elegantly written... Lord of the Flies is a grim anti-pastoral in which adults are disguised as children who replicate the worst of their elders' heritage of ignorance, violence, and warfare." --Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books”

"Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. That was a big influence on me as a teenager, I still read it every couple of years." --Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games "As exciting, relevant, and thought-provoking now as it was when Golding published it in 1954." --Stephen King

"The most influential novel...since Salinger's Catcher in the Rye." --Time

"This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return (in a few weeks) to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge. Fully to succeed, a fantasy must approach very close to reality. Lord of the Flies does. It must also be superbly written. It is." --The New York Times Book Review

"Sparely and elegantly written...Lord of the Flies is a grim anti-pastoral in which adults are disguised as children who replicate the worst of their elders' heritage of ignorance, violence, and warfare." --Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books

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 Spire, Rites of Passage (Booker Prize), and The Double Tongue.

A Special Edition of William Golding's Classic Novel, with the 1962 Introduction by E. M. Forster, Biographical and Critical Notes by E. L. Epstein, and Selected Highlights from Five Decades of Critical Analysis Published in 1954, William Golding's Lord of the Flies has gained a unique status in the pantheon of 20th-century literature, capturing generations of readers with a fascination and passion matched only perhaps by J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. A cult favorite among both students and literary critics, the novel has been called a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse. And yet the most compelling argument that may account for its enduring popularity is the deceptive simplicity of its narrative. Lord of the Flies is an adventure tale in its purest form, a thrilling and elegantly told account of a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys begin to forge their own society, their own rules, their own rituals. With this seemingly romantic premise, through the seemingly innocent acts of children, Golding exposes the duality of human nature itself-the dark, eternal divide between order and chaos, intellect and instinct, structure and savagery. "He here presents the universe," wrote E. M. Forster in his 1962 introduction, "under the guise of a school adventure story on a coral island." Critics and readers have agreed that Golding's metaphorical vision achieves its greatest power through the pure dramatic intensity of the tale itself. The book's terrifying escalation of violence seems as inevitable as it is chilling. It engrosses, it challenges, and it reveals. In the words of Golding himself, "the theme is an attempt to trace the defect of society back to the defect of human nature." In Lord of the Flies, he shows us ourselves, naked and exposed, at once innocent and corrupt, noble and cruel, and all too human.

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