Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s profound tale of stranded youth, survival, and the shadowy depths of human nature, with an afterword by Lois Lowry

“Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. I still read it every couple of years.”—Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games trilogy

At the dawn of the next World War, a plane crash strands a group of schoolboys on a remote island. There are no grownups. No rules. Freedom is celebrated. But when strange, distant noises and visions of a beast begin to haunt the boys, their fragile order unravels, and all hopes of rescue fade.

Since 1954, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has shaped our understanding of human nature—the latent darkness within, and the destructive or creative capacity of collective will. This edition also includes Suggestions for Further Exploration by Jennifer Buehler to contextualize Golding’s classic as one of the most timeless and socially relevant texts in the last century of literature.