Lord of the Flies musical choir under an established leader. With the exception of Sam and Eric and the choirboys, they appear never to have encountered each other before. The book portrays their descent into savagery; left to themselves on a paradisiacal island, far from modern civilization, the well-educated children regress to a primitive state. Golding wrote his book as a counterpoint to R.M. Ballantyne's youth novel "The Coral Island" (1858), and included specific references to it, such as the rescuing naval officer's description of the children's initial attempts at civilised cooperation as "a jolly good show, like the Coral Island". Golding's three central
Martha Peake: a Novel of the Revolution Martha Peake: a Novel of the Revolution Martha Peake: a Novel of the Revolution is a 2000 novel by the British author Patrick McGrath. It tells the story of the grotesquely crippled Harry Peake and his daughter Martha, their involvement with the mysterious anatomist Lord Drogo, the tragic events that separate them, and the subsequent flight of Martha to America at the dawning of the Revolution. The work is narrated by Ambrose Tree as he asks his elderly Uncle William about the story of the "Cripplegate Giant" Harry Peake, his daughter Martha, and Lord Francis Drogo, a famous anatomist that