Lost World & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) [Paperback]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998 | Series: Wordsworth Collection

The science fiction stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stand alongside those of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The protagonist, the 'cave-man in a lounge suit', is the maddening, irascible and fascinating Professor George Edward Challenger. In these collected tales he faces adventures such as that high above the Amazon rain forest in The Lost World and the challenges of The Land of Mist.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853262455
• ISBN-13: 978-1853262456
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The original dinosaur novel -- plus!, March 28, 2000

By 

Joseph W. Smith III - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost World & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) (Paperback)

Ahh -- the creator of the great Sherlock Holmes tackles dinosaurs! In the first novel in this collection, Doyle's lesser-known protagonist, George Edward Challenger, leads an expedition to a South American plateau where prehistoric life still exists. While there's a bit too much Doyle-style propaganda here about evolution and cavemen (remember Doyle sought "the missing link"), it's a fine piece of storytelling from the man who must be acknowledged as the first "dinosaur novelist" -- and whose title Crichton ripped off, without so much as a thanks-a-lot! There are four other tales here as well involving Challenger -- a worthy collection indeed!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Adventure, September 28, 2008

By 

Joseph Boone (Irvine, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost World & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) (Paperback)

This book collects all of the stories featuring Professor George E. Challenger, the most famous of which is The Lost World. Lost World features two scientists, including Challenger, an adventurous English Lord, and a journalist who acts as the story's narrator. As events unfold, the group travels to a mysterious plateau in South America where dinosaurs still roam along with other prehistoric dangers. As one might imagine, the plot largely revolves around the dangers and difficulties of surviving such a locale and returning to civilization.

While Edward Malone is the narrator of the story, the dominant figure is Professor Challenger. His immense intellect is matched only by his ego and air of condescension. It would be easy to dislike such a character, but Doyle does a good job of making him fun to read about. The rest of the cast is also enjoyable and the story is generally a fun read. There are some attitudes expressed toward non-Caucasian characters that are blatantly racist by today's standard, but it would probably be hard to find something from this time period that wouldn't be.

This book contains several stories beyond The Lost World, but they are of a lesser caliber. There are two novella-length stories, The Poison Belt and The Land of Mist, which too often degenerate into an excuse for lengthy philosophical musings expressing points of view that Doyle wanted to get across. The stories are flimsy and the promotion of the author's ideas to ham-handed to be entertaining.

Overall, this book is a good buy and The Lost World is well worth reading. I don't particularly recommend the other stories but this edition is actually cheaper than any version with only The Lost World so you may as well pick this one up and at least have the option of sampling the later tales.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Conan Doyle's best let down by his worst., October 15, 2009

By 

Michael Ryan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost World & Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) (Paperback)

Although I am a Sherlock Holmes fan The Lost World is my favorite Arthur Conan Doyle story and one of my all time favorite novels. Brilliantly told with so much imagination it puts MIchael Crichton and Steven Spielberg to shame for their pedestrian trilogy almost a hundred years later. I would give it 5 stars on its own and recommend it to anyone who was interested in that genre. However one of the most outstanding elements of the novel is the obnoxious and arrogant Professor Challenger who gradually becomes the lovable grouch of the novel.

I was much looking forward to reading other stories featuring the Professor but found all of them a let down and was particularly irritated by the second longest novel in the collection The Land of Mist which firstly hardly features the professor and secondly is not a story at all but an incredibly boring pro spiritualist lecture. The other 3 tales, 1 other short novel and two very short stories, are not too bad but feature little or no adventure and can be quite dull other than as examples of early sci-fi. But the Spiritualist diatribe should be excluded from the collection. It has as little to do with Professor Challenger as it has to do with hard science. I'm not anti spiritualist and wouldn't have minded a good ghost story but The Land of Mist was no story at all, rather just a sequence of reported experiences on Conan Doyle's journey to being converted from sceptic to spiritualist.