William Golding's Notebooks, Letters, and Lord of the Flies Manuscripts in New Anniversary Exhibition

Notebooks belonging to Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding and letters to his Lord of the Flies editor are to go on show at a new exhibition to mark 70 years since the novel was published.

Also on display at the University of Exeter in England will be drafts and correspondence relating to Golding’s other novels and works. The literary archive, which is on loan to the University from the Golding family archive, is usually open for members of the public to view by appointment in the Special Collections Reading Room. 

William Golding’s daughter Judy Carver said: “The Golding family are grateful to the University of Exeter for their care of the manuscripts and typescripts on loan to the University. They also welcome this opportunity for these materials to be viewed by a wider audience and appreciate the careful work that has brought the exhibition contents to public view.”

Lord of the Flies, published in September 1954, was rejected by half a dozen publishers before acceptance by Faber & Faber which has recently brought out a new graphic novel version of the story. The University of Exeter holds the manuscript of Lord of the Flies as part of the William Golding Literary Archive in its Special Collections. Written in a school exercise book with the cover torn off, it differs significantly from the published version - the novel starts with a group of boys on an island, while the manuscript describes how they have been evacuated from a nuclear war and their plane shot down in an aerial battle. 

“At the time of writing Lord of the Flies, Golding was an obscure 40-something teacher," said Professor Tim Kendall from the University of Exeter. "He had already written three full length manuscripts and had been sending those out to publishers over several years. No one seemed interested. Yet within three weeks of the novel’s publication, film studios were enquiring over the rights, and within a decade it was established as a modern classic.”

The exhibition runs September 24 through December 15 in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Old Library, University of Exeter. In addition, display panels featuring information about the Golding papers held at the University of Exeter are on show across Exeter until October 31.