[4] He had started writing a novel exploring the father-son relationship through the mythical character of Telegonus (son of Odysseus), titled In Search of My Father, a year prior; Monteith requested a chapter, the typescript for which demonstrates 'some of Golding's most spectacular prose'.

[5] Monteith was 'enormously interested',[6] but after favourable reviews of Lord of the Flies, it was left unfinished owing to Golding's belief that it would come off as a cheap imitation of other historical epics.

[7] Golding finished his first draft of The Inheritors on 11 November 1954, though he deemed his own handwriting illegible and worked on the novel significantly over Christmas, redrafting, reworking, and typing the manuscript to submit to Monteith.

[9] Golding had also wanted to finish the book sooner; after moving house to the Victorian vicarage across the road, his increased rent had made him 'consequently hard up'.

[11] This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals, consisting of an old man (Mal), an unnamed old woman, four adults (Ha, Nil, Lok and Fa), a little girl (Liku) and a baby, simply referred to as "the new one".

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 heartfelt, solemn rituals.

As the novel progresses it becomes more and more apparent that they live very simply, using their considerable mental abilities to connect to one another without extensive vocabulary or the kinds of memories that create culture.

In the final chapter, we move to the point of view of the new race, more or less modern humans fleeing in their boats, revealing that they are terribly afraid of the Neanderthals (whom they believe to be devils of the forest) and of pretty much everything around.

[12] However, though few in number to begin with, reviews of the book were largely positive: two separate critics—Philip Day from The Sunday Times and Peter Green (who was later a friend of Golding's) from The Daily Telegraph—described the novel as a tour de force,[13] whilst Isabel Quigly called it "a many-dimensional and astonishing book" in The Spectator[14] two weeks after its initial publication, along with similarly positive reviews from myriad newspapers and literary journals.