ONE OF THE BBC'S 'NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'A group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island: what could go wrong?

William Golding's brutal exposure of human savagery is not only a modern classic, but more relevant today than ever. A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast.

As the boys' delicate sense of order fades, their childish fears are transformed into something deeper and more primitive. Their games take on a horrible significance - and before long the well-behaved party of schoolboys has devolved into a tribe of murderous savages. First published in 1954, William Golding's Lord of the Flies is one of the most celebrated of all modern novels.