Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by the Nobel laureate British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality.
The novel, which was Golding's debut, was generally well received. It was named in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 41 on the editor's list, and 25 on the reader's list. In 2003, it was listed at number 70 on the BBC's The Big Read poll, and in 2005 Time magazine named it as one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005, and included it in its list of the 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time. Popular reading in schools, especially in the English-speaking world, Lord of the Flies was ranked third in the nation's favourite books from school in a 2016 UK poll.
Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel. The concept arose after Golding read what he deemed to be an unrealistic portrayal of stranded children in the youth novel The Coral Island: a Tale of the Pacific Ocean (1857) by R. M. Ballantyne, which includes themes of the civilising effect of Christianity and the importance of hierarchy and leadership. Golding asked his wife, Ann, if it would "be a good idea if I wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?"[3] As a result, the novel contains various references to The Coral Island, such as the rescuing naval officer's description of the boys' initial attempts at civilised cooperation as a "jolly good show. Like the Coral Island."[4] Golding's three central characters (Ralph, Piggy, and Jack) have also been interpreted as caricatures of Ballantyne's Coral Island protagonists.[5]
The manuscript was rejected by many publishers before finally being accepted by London-based Faber & Faber; an initial rejection by the professional reader, Miss Perkins, at Faber labelled the book an "absurd and uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atomic bomb on the colonies and a group of children who land in the jungle near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull. Pointless".[6] However, Charles Monteith decided to take on the manuscript[7] and worked with Golding to complete several fairly major edits, including the removal of the entire first section of the novel, which had previously described an evacuation from nuclear war.[6] The character of Simon was heavily redacted by Monteith, removing his interaction with a mysterious lone figure who is never identified but implied to be God.[8] Monteith himself was concerned about these changes, completing "tentative emendations", and warning against "turning Simon into a prig".[6] Ultimately, Golding made all of Monteith's recommended edits and wrote back in his final letter to his editor that "I've lost any kind of objectivity I ever had over this novel and can hardly bear to look at it."[9] These manuscripts and typescripts are now available from the Special Collections Archives at the University of Exeter library for further study and research.[10] The collection includes the original 1952 "Manuscript Notebook" (originally a Bishop Wordsworth's School notebook) containing copious edits and strikethroughs.
After the changes made by Monteith, and slow sales of the three thousand copy first printing, the book went on to become a best-seller, with more than ten million copies sold as of 2015.[7] It has been adapted to film twice in English, in 1963 by Peter Brook and 1990 by Harry Hook, and once in Filipino by Lupita A. Concio (1975).
The book never states the location of the unnamed island, although it is implied to be located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The book begins with the boys' arrival on the island after their plane has been attacked after an atomic bomb is detonated.[11]