The Rejection Letter That Almost Killed 'Lord of the Flies'

Bloody Cavemen

Before William Golding's Lord of the Flies became a classroom staple, it was rejected by publisher after publisher. One reader called it 'rubbish and dull.' Then a young editor named Charles Monteith, himself a wartime survivor, pulled a battered manuscript from the slush pile and saw something no one else had. Their correspondence reveals how editorial vision reshaped the novel—and how power shifted once it became a phenomenon.