Editing Lord of the Flies (section)

== Background ==
Published in 1954, ''Lord of the Flies'' was Golding's first novel. Golding got the idea for the plot from ''[[The Coral Island]]'', a children's adventure novel with a focus on Christianity and the supposed civilising influence of [[British colonialism]]. Golding thought that the book was unrealistic and asked his wife whether it would be a good idea if he "wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?"<ref>Presley, Nicola. "Lord of the Flies and The Coral Island." ''William Golding Official Site'', 30th Jun 2017, https://william-golding.co.uk/lord-flies-coral-island {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123002353/https://william-golding.co.uk/lord-flies-coral-island |date=23 January 2021}}. Accessed 9th Feb 2021.</ref>

Golding, who was a philosophy teacher before becoming a [[Royal Navy]] lieutenant, experienced war firsthand and commanded a landing craft in the [[Normandy landings|Normandy landings during D-Day]] in 1944. After the war ended and Golding returned to England, the world was dominated by [[Cold War]] and the threat of [[nuclear annihilation]], which led Golding to examine the nature of humanity and that went on to inspire ''Lord of the Flies''.<ref name="youtube.com">{{cite web |last=Dash |first=Jill |title=Why should you read "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding? |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnnZ6y1HPqI |website=[[YouTube]]|date=12 December 2019 }}</ref>

The draft of the book was entitled ''Strangers from Within'', which was considered "too abstract and too explicit".<ref name="Guardian LOTF">{{cite news |title=The 100 best novels: No 74 – Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/16/lord-of-the-flies-100-greatest-novels-william-golding-mccrum |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200612123002/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/16/lord-of-the-flies-100-greatest-novels-william-golding-mccrum |archive-date=12 June 2020 |access-date=25 June 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> 

The novel was rejected by many publishers before being accepted by [[Faber & Faber]]. An initial rejection labelled the book as "absurd... Rubbish & dull".<ref name="Strangers from Within">Monteith, Charles. "Strangers from Within." ''William Golding: The Man and His Books'', edited by [[John Carey (critic)|John Carey]], Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1987.</ref> Eventually the title was changed and Golding chose ''Lord of the Flies''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Symons |first=Julian |date=26 September 1986 |title=Golding's way |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1986/sep/26/biography |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191006122219/https://www.theguardian.com/books/1986/sep/26/biography |archive-date=6 October 2019 |access-date=28 April 2019 |work=The Guardian |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Faber |first=Toby |date=28 April 2019 |title=Lord of the Flies? 'Rubbish'. Animal Farm? Too risky – Faber's secrets revealed |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/28/faber-and-faber-the-untold-story-letters-eliot-joyce-beckett-plath-larkin |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428113315/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/28/faber-and-faber-the-untold-story-letters-eliot-joyce-beckett-plath-larkin |archive-date=28 April 2019 |access-date=28 April 2019 |work=The Observer |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> The title is a literal translation of [[Beelzebub]], a biblical demon considered the god of pride and warfare.<ref>{{Bibleref2|2Kings|1:2–3, 6, 16|NIV|2 Kings 1:2–3, 6, 16}}</ref>

Editor [[Charles Monteith]] worked with Golding on several major edits, including removing the entire first section that described an evacuation from [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]].<ref name="Strangers from Within" /><ref name="Guardian LOTF" /> The character of Simon also was heavily edited to remove an interaction with a mysterious figure who is implied to be a god.<ref>Kendall, Tim. Email, ''University of Exeter'', received 5th Feb 2021.</ref> Ultimately, Golding accepted the edits, and wrote that "I've lost any kind of objectivity I ever had over this novel and can hardly bear to look at it".<ref>{{cite web |last=Williams |first=Phoebe |title=New BBC programme sheds light on the story behind the publication of Lord of the Flies |website=Faber & Faber Official Site |date=6 June 2019 |url=https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/new-bbc-programme-sheds-light-on-the-story-behind-the-publication-of-lord-of-the-flies/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501124922/https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/new-bbc-programme-sheds-light-on-the-story-behind-the-publication-of-lord-of-the-flies/ |archive-date=1 May 2021 |url-status=live |access-date=14 February 2021}}</ref> The edited manuscripts are available to view at the [[University of Exeter]] library.<ref name="uexeter">{{cite web | url=http://lib-archives.ex.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=EUL+MS+429 | title=EUL MS 429 – William Golding, Literary Archive | publisher=University of Exeter | work=Archives Catalogue | access-date=6 October 2021 | quote=The collection represents the literary papers of William Golding and consists of notebooks, manuscript and typescript drafts of Golding's novels up to 1989. | archive-date=5 April 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405180940/http://lib-archives.ex.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=EUL+MS+429 | url-status=dead }}</ref>