Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position No. 68 on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1900-1999.

     Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding’s first novel. Although it was not a great success at the time—selling fewer than 3,000 copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print—it soon went on to become a best-seller. It has been adapted to film twice in English, in 1963 by Peter Brook and 1990 by Harry Hook, and once in Filipino (1976.)

     In 2005 the novel was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923-2005. It was awarded a place on both lists of Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching No. 41 on the editor’s list, and No. 25 on the reader’s list. In 2003 the novel was listed at No. 70 on the BBC’s survey “The Big Read.”