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. "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

"I finished the last half of Lord of the Flies in a single afternoon, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, not thinking, just inhaling....My rule of thumb as a writer and reader—largely formed by Lord of the Flies—is feel it first, think about it later." 
—Stephen King

"This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return [in a few weeks] to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge. Fully to succeed, a fantasy must approach very close to reality. Lord of the Flies does. It must also be superbly written. It is." 
—The New York Times Book Review