Flowers for Algernon is a character study of one man, Charlie Gordon. Charlie is a 32-year-old developmentally disabled man who has the opportunity to undergo a surgical procedure that will dramatically increase his mental capabilities. This procedure had already been performed on a laboratory mouse, Algernon, with remarkable results. Charlie will be the first human subject.

Originally published in 1959 as a short story forThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon won a Hugo Award in 1960 for the Best Science Fiction Novelette of the Year. The story was then telecast on the U.S. Steel Hour in 1961 as "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon." Keyes later reworked the short-story version of Flowers for Algernon into his first full-length novel.