Lord of the Flies

About the Author

William Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911 and was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before he became a schoolmaster he was an actor, a lecturer, a small-boat sailor and a musician. A now rare volume, Poems, appeared in 1934. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and saw action against battleships, submarines and aircraft. He was present at the sinking of the Bismarck. He finished the war as a Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship, which was off the French coast for the D-day invasion, and later at the island of Welcheren. After the war he returned to Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and was there when his first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954. He gave up teaching in 1961.

Lord of the Flies was filmed by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding listed his hobbies as music, chess, sailing, archaeology and classical Greek (which he taught himself). Many of these subjects appear in his essay collections.

About the book

• With an introduction and notes by Ian Gregor and Mark Kinkead-Weekes
• William Golding's Lord of the Flies is now generally recognized as a modern classic and this edition is issued to answer the wide demand for its use in schools and its prescription by numerous examining boards.
• Professor Ian Gregor and Professor Mark Kinkead-Weekes provide an introduction and a series of notes on the text. In compiling these they have borne in mind the needs of young readers not only in this country but also overseas. The text of the novel itself is republished complete.