The Coral Island the civilising effect of Christianity, 19th-century British imperialism in the South Pacific, and the importance of hierarchy and leadership. It was the inspiration for William Golding's dystopian novel "Lord of the Flies" (1954), which inverted the morality of "The Coral Island"; in Ballantyne's story the children encounter evil, but in "Lord of the Flies" evil is within them. In the early 20th century, the novel was considered a classic for primary school children in the UK, and in the United States it was a staple of high-school suggested reading lists. Modern critics consider the book's worldview to be dated and
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