Staff Pick
In this bleak tale of a community gone awry, a group of schoolboys are stranded on a deserted island. The untenable situation soon devolves into chaos and horror. The ending is surprising and satisfying. Golding's creepy story is amazing! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The classic novel by William Golding
With a new Introduction by Stephen King
"To me Lord of the Flies has always represented what novels are for, what makes them indispensable." -Stephen King
Golding's classic, startling, and perennially bestselling portrait of human nature remains as provocative today as when it was first published. This beautiful new edition features French flaps and rough fronts, making it a must-have for fans of this seminal work.
Review
"
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
Review
"
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
Synopsis
A Casebook Edition containing the full text of LORD OF THE FLIES, plus notes and critical essays
The material in this casebook edition of one of the most widely read novels of our time includes not only the full text of LORD OF THE FLIES, but also statements by William Golding about the novel, reminisces of Golding by his brother, an appreciation of the novel by E.M. Forster, and a number of critical essays from various points of vierw. Included are psychological, religious, and literary approaches by noted scholars and studies of the novel's relation to earlier works, as well as to other writings by Golding. The editors have also included bibliographical material and explanatory notes.
Edited by James R. Baker and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr.
About the Author
Born in Cornwall, England, in 1911 and educated at Oxford University, William Gerald Golding's first book, Poems, was published in 1935. Following a stint in the Royal Navy and other diversions during and after World War II, Golding wrote Lord of the Flies while teaching school. This was the first of several novels including Pincher Martin, Free Fall, and The Inheritors and a play, The Brass Butterfly, which led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.
Stephen King, the world's bestselling novelist, was educated at the University of Maine at Orono. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King, and their children in Bangor, Maine.
Table of Contents
Lord of the Flies
Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. Foreword
James R. Baker
Introduction
William Golding
Lord of the Flies
James Keating-William Golding
Purdue Interview
Frank Kermode-William Golding
The Meaning of It All
Frank Kermode
The Novels of William Golding
E. M. Forster
An Introduction to "Lord of the Flies"
Donald R. Spangler
Simon
Carl Niemeyer
The Coral Island Revisited
J. T. C. Golding
A World of Violence and Small Boys
John Peter
The Fables of William Golding
Ian Gregor and Mark Kinkead-Weekes
An Introduction to "Lord of the Flies"
William R. Mueller
An Old Story Well Told
Thomas M. Coskren
Is Golding Calvinistic?
Claire Rosenfield
Men of a Smaller Growth
E. L. Epstein
Notes on "Lord of the Flies"
Time
Lord of the Campus
A Checklist of Publications Relevant to "Lord of the Flies"