The Inheritors (Golding novel) The Inheritors (Golding novel) The Inheritors is a work of prehistoric fiction and the second novel, published in 1955, by the British author William Golding, best known for "Lord of the Flies". It concerns the extinction of one of the last remaining tribes of Neanderthals at the hands of the more sophisticated "Homo sapiens". This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals. It is written in such a way that the reader might assume the group to be modern "Homo sapiens" as they gesture and speak simply among themselves, and bury their dead with
Lord of the World is not as well known as the dystopian writings of Evgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, "Lord of the World" continues to have many admirers—especially among Conservative and Traditionalist Catholics. In a 2005 essay, Joseph Pearce wrote that, while Orwell and Huxley's novels are "great literature", they "are clearly inferior works of prophecy." Pearce explains that while "the political dictatorships" that inspired Huxley and Orwell "have had their day", "Benson's novel-nightmare... is coming true before our very eyes." Pearce elaborates, The world depicted in "Lord of the World" is one where creeping secularism and godless humanism have triumphed over