A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast.
In this, his first novel, William Golding gave the traditional adventure story an ironic, devastating twist. The boys' delicate sense of order fades, and their childish fears are transformed into something deeper and more primitive. Their games take on a horrible significance, and before long the well-behaved party of schoolboys has turned into a tribe of faceless, murderous savages.
First published in 1954, Lord of the Flies is now recognized as a classic, one of the most celebrated of all modern novels.
Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.
Christopher Martin, the sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is stranded upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the night cold and the terror of his isolation. To drink there is a pool of rain water; to eat there are weeds and sea anemones. Through the long hours with only himself to talk to, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate, piece by terrible piece. While most readers are aware of William Golding as the writer of Lord of the Flies , it is Pincher Martin , his third novel, that speaks most directly to contemporary readers. This shocking, unusual bullet of a book is the definitive survival novel and has an ending that is guaranteed to leave you reeling.
''The first book that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat.''
STEPHEN KING
''One of my favorite books.''
SUZANNE COLLINS, author of The Hunger Games
Before The Stand and The Hunger Games, before Battle Royale and Yellowjackets, there was Lord of the Flies.
A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors, a group of schoolboys. By day, they explore the dazzling beaches. By night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast and of what they''ve lost.
''There aren''t any grown-ups anywhere.''
Orphaned by society, they must forge their own; but it isn''t long before the group is split, and their innocent games take a dangerous turn.
''What are we? Humans? Or Animals?''
For the first time, from acclaimed artist Aimee de Jongh, comes the stunning graphic novel adaptation of this classic story, one of the BBCs ''100 Novels that shaped our World''.
