The Lost World is a science fiction novel by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1912, concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive. It was originally published serially in the Strand Magazine and illustrated by New-Zealand-born artist Harry Rountree during the months of April–November 1912. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. The novel also describes a war between indigenous people and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures.
Frontispiece photo from the 1912 edition of The Lost World, showing the fictional members of the expedition, left to right: E. D. Malone; Professor Summerlee; Professor G. E. Challenger; Lord John Roxton (Challenger was impersonated by Conan Doyle himself)
Edward Malone, a young reporter for the Daily Gazette, asks his editor for a dangerous assignment to impress the woman he loves, Gladys, who wishes for a great man capable of brave deeds and actions. His task is to approach the notorious Professor Challenger, who dislikes the popular press intensely and physically assaults intrusive journalists. The subject is to be his recent South American expedition which, surrounded by controversy, guarantees a hostile reaction. As a direct approach would be instantly rebuffed, Malone instead masquerades as an earnest student. On meeting the professor he is startled by his intimidating physique, but believes his ruse is succeeding. However, Challenger had really seen through the masquerade, and after confirming Malone’s scientific knowledge is non-existent, erupts in anger and forcibly throws him out.
Maple White's sketch of a living Stegosaurus
However, Malone earns his respect by refusing to press charges with a policeman who saw his violent ejection into the street. Challenger ushers him back inside and, extracting promises of confidentiality, eventually reveals he has discovered living dinosaurs in South America, following up an expedition by a now-deceased previous Americanexplorer named Maple White. At a tumultuous public meeting in which Challenger experiences further ridicule (most notably from a professional rival, Professor Summerlee), Malone volunteers for an expedition to verify the discoveries. His companions are to be Professor Summerlee, and Lord John Roxton, an adventurer who helped end slavery on the Amazon; the notches on his rifle showing how many slavers he killed doing so.
View of the plateau that isolates the lost world
Running the gauntlet of hostile tribes, the expedition finally reaches the lost world with the aid of indigenous guides, who are superstitiously scared of the area. Summerlee retains his scepticism, despite being delighted at making other scientific discoveries in the fields of botany and entomology: even a glimpse of a pterodactyl at a distance fails to convince him, because he believes it is some species of stork. The sharper-eyed Roxton is inclined to agree it is not a stork but has no clue what it really is, until a night-time encounter when it flies down and is seen by all at close range, as it steals the companions’ dinner. After this, Summerlee apologises to Challenger.
A pterodactyl steals the explorers' dinner, illustration from French serial version, 1914
The group explores the entire base of the plateau to find a way to the top and discover that a former route up is now blocked by a rock slide. They also encounter human bones at one spot at the base of the cliff, identified as James Colver, Mable White’s companion, who, it would seem, somehow fell to his death. With the cliffs to the plateau apparently unscalable, an adjacent pinnacle is climbable but separated by a wide gap. Challenger determines that a tall tree on the pinnacle can be cut down and used as a bridge, which allows the four explorers to cross over to the plateau. However, they are almost immediately trapped on the other side, thanks to the treachery of one of their hired porters, Gomez—who, as it turns out, is a former slaver whose brother had previously been killed by Roxton during his anti-slavery activities. He takes his revenge by dropping the tree off the cliff, stranding the explorers on the plateau. Roxton shoots Gomez and they hear the scream and then the thud of the falling body. The other guide is subsequently killed by another porter, a formerly enslaved black man named Zambo, who remains loyal to the party: but the latter is unable to do much more to help, other than send some of the company's supplies over by rope.
The group encountering IguanodonThe central lake on the plateauRookery swamp of the pterodactyls
The explorers investigate the wonders of the lost world, discovering many plants and creatures thought to be extinct, including Iguanodons. They narrowly escape an attack from pterodactyls after the party comes upon a rookery around a swampy pit in a former volcanic blow-hole, guarded by the larger males. Although barely escaping with their lives, Roxton takes great interest in nearby blue clay deposits.
Pterodactyls attack the explorers, illustration from French serial version, 1914
At night a ferocious Megalosaurus is about to break through the protective fence of thorn bushes built around their camp; Roxton averts disaster by bravely dashing at it, thrusting a blazing torch at its face to scare it away. The night after, Malone studies fauna near the central lake including a Stegosaurus. He barely escapes a Megalosaurus and falls into a deep pit dug to trap and impale animals.
Professor Challenger's life spared because of his resemblance to the king of the ape-men, illustration from French serial version, 1914
After climbing out of the pit, Malone returns to the camp to find the others missing and signs of a violent attack. He contacts Zambo but finds no clue to what exactly has happened. The following morning, Roxton arrives after escaping the race of "ape-men" that captured the party one night previous. While in captivity, they discovered that a tribe of indigenous people, with whom the "ape-men" are at war, inhabit the other side of the plateau.
Roxton and Malone take their rifles to mount a rescue. They arrive at the village of the ape-men and see an Indian hurled off the cliff to the delight of the hairy creatures. Professor Challenger apparently enjoys special status as a captive because of his physical resemblance to the king of the ape-men, and tries in vain to save Summerlee from a similar death. Lord Roxton shoots the king dead at the start of the rescue attack, and he and Malone fire repeatedly, preventing the ape-men from throwing Summerlee and the remaining captured tribe members over the edge.
One of the saved Indians is a young prince of the tribe and the surviving tribe members take the party back to their village. With the help of the explorers’ firepower, they return to defeat the "ape-men", slaughtering all the adult males, with most being driven off the cliff. After witnessing the power of their guns, the tribe wishes to keep the explorers on the plateau. During their time with the tribe, Roxton plans how to capture a pterodactyl chick at Challenger's request, using a protective wooden cage against the adult pterodactyls. Wanting to leave and return to civilization, the explorers are helped by the young prince they saved, who gives them a crude map of the caves in the hillside near the tribe. With the map, the explorers are able to find a tunnel leading back to the outside world. They escape by night, descending on a rope.
Upon return to England, despite full reports from Malone many detractors continue to dismiss the expedition's account, much as they had Challenger's original story—although Summerlee, having been on the expedition, has now switched sides and is supporting Challenger. Anticipating this, at a public meeting at Queen's Hall Challenger produces the young pterodactyl as proof, transfixing the audience and leaving them in no doubt of the truth. The explorers are instantly feted as heroes, and on a wave of adulation find themselves carried shoulder-high from the hall by cheering crowds. The pterodactyl, in the confusion, makes its escape and is witnessed several times at different locations around London, causing consternation wherever it goes, but is last seen heading off to the southwest in the probable direction of its home.
At a private celebratory dinner, Roxton reveals to the others that the blue clay contained diamonds. He had been tipped off to the possibility, by the recollection of a similar feature in South Africa, and managed to extract about £200,000 worth (£23 million in 2021), which is to be split between them. Challenger plans to open a private museum with his share. Summerlee plans to retire and categorise fossils. Malone returns to his love, Gladys, hoping she will recognise his achievements. Instead, he finds she has now changed her mind and married a very ordinary man instead, an insignificant clerk. Astonished at this turn of events, and with nothing to keep him in London, he decides to accompany Roxton back to the lost world, which the explorers earlier had named "Maple White Land" in honor of the American who found it.
Characters
Professor George Edward Challenger – An energetic British zoologist with an arrogant, cantankerous personality and volatile temper; his hairy, burly body and his thick beard are a source of humor in the story, including a resemblance to the king of the ape-men, who treats him like a brother after he is captured
Edward D. Malone – A reporter at the Daily Gazette of Irish background; an athletic rugby player
McArdle – Malone's editor at the Daily Gazette
Professor Summerlee – An older British zoologist who is skeptical of Challenger’s claims
Lord John Roxton – A widely traveled adventurer and skilled big-game hunter, an opponent of slavery
Gomez – Brother to an enslaver whom Roxton killed
Manuel – Gomez's friend
Zambo – South American black man loyal to the explorers
Gladys Hungerton – Edward Malone's love interest
Jessie Challenger – Challenger's wife, who deplores his belligerent behavior
Maple White – Deceased explorer who discovered the lost world
The Accala Indians – The native human inhabitants of the lost world plateau
Prehistoric animals encountered
Iguanodon – Large plant-eating dinosaurs: "they looked like monstrous kangaroos, twenty feet in length, and with skins like black crocodiles"; treated like cattle by the tribe of Indians living on the plateau.
Megalosaurus (or Allosaurus) – Large meat-eating dinosaurs that Challenger and Summerlee debate if Megalosaurus or Allosaurus; oddly described as: "In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant"; their "blotched and warty skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence"
Stegosaurus – Armored plant-eating dinosaur, sketched by Maple White in his notebook, sighted by Malone near the lake at night
Plesiosaurus – Long-necked swimming reptile seen on the shore of the lake, much to Summerlee's delight
Ichthyosaurus – Fish-like aquatic reptile caught in a net in the lake by the tribe
Megaloceros – Described as a huge deer resembling the "Irish elk" but without using a scientific name
Glyptodon – Described as like large armadillos, but without using a scientific name
Toxodon – Described as a: "giant ten-foot guinea pig, with projecting chisel teeth"
Phorusrhacos – A giant predatory bird called "phororacos" that chases and attacks Challenger, killed by Lord Roxton, who takes the skull as a trophy
Ape-men – Anthropoid apes covered in reddish hair, described as: "an advance upon the pithecanthropus of Java, and as coming therefore nearer than any known form to that hypothetical creation, the missing link"
Greg Bear's 1998 novel Dinosaur Summer is a sequel to The Lost World, set in an alternate history 1947. In the context of Bear's novel, The Lost World was a nonfiction work published by Doyle as recounted to him by Professor Challenger.
References to actual history, geography and current science
Map of Maple-White Land
The characters of Ed Malone and Lord John Roxton were modelled, respectively, on the journalist E. D. Morel and the diplomat Roger Casement, leaders of the Congo Free State reform campaign (the Congo Reform Association), which Doyle supported.[1] In 1911, just when Doyle was writing the book, Casement made a second such anti-slavery reform campaign in the Amazonian part of Peru. It is possible that Malone was also based on Bertram Fletcher Robinson, a close friend of Doyle's, because like Robinson, Malone was raised in the West Country, exceeded sixfeet in height, became an accomplished rugby union player, worked as a London-based journalist, and he loved a woman called Gladys.[2]
Doyle was aware of his good friend Percy Harrison Fawcett's expedition to the Huanchaca Plateau in Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, Bolivia. Fawcett organised several expeditions to delimit the border between Bolivia and Brazil – an area of potential conflict between both countries. Doyle attended Fawcett's lecture to the Royal Geographical Society on 13 February 1911[3] and was impressed by the tale about the remote "province of Caupolican" (present day Huanchaca Plateau) in Bolivia – a dangerous area with impenetrable forests, where Fawcett saw "monstrous tracks of unknown origin".[4]
Fawcett wrote in his posthumously published memoirs: "Monsters from the dawn of Man's existence might still roam these heights unchallenged, imprisoned and protected by unscalable cliffs. So thought Conan Doyle when later in London I spoke of these hills and showed photographs of them. He mentioned an idea for a novel on Central South America and asked for information, which I told him I should be glad to supply. The fruit of it was his Lost World in 1912, appearing as a serial in the Strand Magazine, and subsequently in the form of a book that achieved widespread popularity."[5]
A 1996 Science Fiction Studies review of an annotated edition of the novel suggested that another inspiration for the story may have been the 1890s contested political history of the Pacaraima Mountains plateaux, and Mount Roraima in particular.[6]
Cover of the German translation of The Lost World from 1926Article in Science and Invention on the making of the film The Lost World (1925)
With Abraham Sofaer, Ivor Barnard, Lewis Stringer, Cyril Gardiner
Dinosaurs! (1966, an audio dramatic version of The Lost World adapted and directed by Ronald Liss and recorded by permission of the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; MGM/Leo the Lion Records C/CH-1016)
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