Lord of the Flies

By: Golding, William

William Golding's profound tale of stranded youth, survival, and the shadowy depths of human nature

A Penguin Classic

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 essays on reading and teaching the novel, an introduction from the 1962 edition by E. M. Forster, and notes by E. L. Epstein, scholar and book editor of the first 1959 American paperback edition, to contextualize Golding's classic as one of the most timeless and socially relevant texts in the last century of literature.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143139355
• ISBN13: 9780143139355
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

"All we have are the rules."

Ever fantasize that you are on an island free from the restraints of society? William Golding has taken that scenario to the nth degree in this story of a bunch of English boys whose plane crashed on an island during WWII. We see the fabric of society slowly and most assuredly ripping as the rules are discarded one by one. Golding is very graphic in his description of the demise of pigs and plants. One will never look at fun and games in the same way. In some places, this is mandatory reading as a classic; in other places, it is banned. The book is best known for what it says, not how it says it. In any case, you must read for cultural literature knowledge.