Customer Reviews

The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales (Penguin Classics)

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Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is now chiefly remembered for his excellent Sherlock Holmes stories. However, Doyle wrote many exciting stories of adventure and mystery. This book contains four such stories.

1) In The Lost world, reporter Edward Malone accepts the challenge to explore a recently discovered South American plateau that allegedly contains dinosaurs. Teamed up with the eccentric Professor Challenger, the dubious Professor Summerlee, and the heroic Lord John Roxton, the heroes of the story find themselves immersed in an adventure beyond their wildest dreams. 2) In The Poison Belt, Malone is summoned by Professor Challenger with a cryptic note. It seems that the Earth is moving towards a poisonous section of space, and Challenger hopes that he can rescue himself and his associates-the last people left on Earth. 3) The Terror of Blue John Gap is a short diary telling the story of one man's confrontation with a monster that any modern man knows could not possibly exist. And finally, 4) The Horror of the Heights is another short diary excerpt that tells the story of a daring aviators discovery that the air also has its jungles and predators.

While somewhat dated, these stories are well written and quite exciting. They reflect a world that is now gone, but is quite interesting to read about. Overall, I must say that if you like adventure stories, then you must read this book!

Penguin edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales" comes with four tales: "The Lost World," "The Poison Belt," "The Terror of Blue John Gap" and "The Horror of Heights."

The first two stories (both are long ones) features Doyle's famous creation besides Holmes -- hot-tempered genius Professor Challenger. "The Lost World" is narrated by a newsreporter Edward Malone, who seeks for the chance to show before his love Gladys that he also could show the heroism by doing a great thing. So he grabs the opportunity to accampany the exploration team to prove the theory of Professor Challenger that there is a plateau untouched by the modern civilization deep in the South America where extinct animals are still living.

So, there go four characters -- Challenger, Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton (a nice-guy type of sportsman), and Professor Summerlee, who wants to disprove Challenger's theory by his own hand. The adventures themselves including the encounter with dinosaurs or other creatures are written with vivid touch, even though some parts are clearly dated. And some readers may feel uncomfortable when reading some violent scenes.

This story is filmed many times -- most as early as in 1925 -- but the ending is much different. Interestingly, the dinosaurs are not the main feature of the novel (even though Penguin's cover suggests the terrible havoc they do on the city, which is unashamedly borrowed in Steven Spielberg's film of the same title).

"The Lost World" (1912) was written immediately before WWI, and perhaps was the last romance that could depict the heroism in this way, in a remote country, against the exotic background of the Amazon. If you like it, read "King Solomon's Mines" or "She" by H. Rider Haggard, which were written in the late 19th century.

"The Poison Belt" the second "Professor Challenger" tale sounds more apocalyptic, beginning with the newspaper column of the Professor who predicts the mass destruction of the human beings. The story brings back the four characters of the last adventure, and shows how the world ends as Malone et al. see it. Though the story lacks scientific precision (what's "ether"?, you may say) and the final chapter is a huge letdown, the story is full of impact, describing the fear and terror of the people facing death. Some parts of it still look very modern and immediate, as if the scenes from "Dawn of the Dead" or "28 Days Later."

The last two shorts are comparatively weak, but not bad. "The Terror of Blue John Gap" is, as the title suggests, about the terror of the underground while "The Horror of the Heights" could be rephrased as "the horror seen by a daredevil pilot."

The Penguin edition has Philip Gooden's insightful introduction which also tells us the real-life models of the characters. He also provides useful notes, and the book has the original illustrations (the kind of garish drawings capturing the shocking moments of the story), which are pure delight to see. A good read for holidays.

The Lost World is delightful adventure fiction that remains quite popular nearly a century after it original publication. Arthur Conan Doyle's story may have some factual errors regarding specifics of various dinosaur species, but it is nonetheless a thrilling adventure into the wilds of the Amazon jungle. Black and white photos (albeit somewhat blurry) give credence to the existence of an isolated basaltic plateau that hosts not only dinosaurs, but also primitive natives living in constant struggle for survival against a brutal tribe of ape-men.

Doyle's characters were ready made for the silver screen. The irascible Professor Challenger has encountered evidence that large creatures, possibly dinosaurs, inhabit an unexplored region of the immense Amazonian forest, but is ridiculed by the scientific establishment despite his notable academic credentials. A highly skeptical scientist, Professor Summerlee, agrees to accompany an expedition on behalf of the prestigious Zoological Institute. The team is rounded out by Lord John Roxton, a famous Amazonian explorer, and Ed Malone, an enthusiastic young reporter for the London Gazette.

The plot is not entirely farfetched as the Amazon jungle remained largely unexplored in the early twentieth century except along the Amazon River and its major tributaries. In this narrative account the directions have been deliberately obscured to keep others from finding this prehistoric sanctuary. Nonetheless, I have spent evenings - so far without success - utilizing Google Earth to scan for possible locations of this hidden plateau. I continue my efforts.

In 1912 Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World was published in serial form in both Great Britain (The Strand Magazine) and in the US (Philadelphia Press), and later that year in book form. Although perhaps less familiar today than H. G. Well's classic science fiction novels like The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, The Lost World was made into a popular film in 1925 (starring Wallace Beery), a BBC radio broadcast by John Dickson Carr, an audio cassette (with Leonard Nimoy), more modern films in 1960, 1992, and 1998, and as various TV movies. This particular paperback edition was released in conjunction with a new A&E/BBC production The Lost World in 2002.

hey guys, standards are slipping here.

this is not a mystery book--this is early science fiction.

and, elizabeth peters is not englihs, she's american, and the mitchell book is about a comanche, on a reservation--definitely NOT english.

you need a better editor here.