The Coral Island by modern scholars and generally considered to be dated in many aspects, in 2006 it was voted one of the top twenty Scottish novels at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference. Robert Louis Stevenson's 1882 novel "Treasure Island" was in part inspired by "The Coral Island", which he admired for its "better qualities", as was J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan; both Stevenson and Barrie had been "fervent boy readers" of the novel. Novelist G. A. Henty was also influenced by Ballantyne's audience-friendly method of didactism. William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies" was written as a counterpoint
The Fox, the Flies and the Hedgehog in the neo-Latin verse of Gabriele Faerno’s fable collection (1563), which closes on the sentiment Aristotle’s version of the fable is also followed by Samuel Croxall in his prose collection of "The Fables of Æsop" (1722). The story in La Fontaine's Fables (1694) is more or less the same, except that the fox has been wounded in the chase. La Fontaine too mentions Aristotle and the political lesson that he draws, while the circumstances are repeated in Brooke Boothby’s very short poetic version. William Somervile adapted the fable more long-windedly into “The wounded man and the swarm of flies”, taking