Read4MaxClassics Browse library
Cover of The Lost World

Adventure

The Lost World

A team of scientists and adventurers explores a prehistoric land.

First published
1912
Length
76,072 words
Reading time
About 5 hr 17 min
Language
English (US)

About the book

Even though Doyle is most famous for his Sherlock stories, he was also a prolific novelist, and The Lost World is one of his more famous non-Sherlock novels. Like many novels of the day, it was first published serially.

In it we meet a group of adventurers who head to a deep South American jungle to explore rumors of long-lost dinosaurs. The plot is driven by their journey, discoveries, and subsequent narrow escape. Notably, The Lost World is the novel in which Doyle’s popular recurring character, Professor Challenger , is introduced.

Doyle based many of the characters and locations on people and places he was familiar with: the journalist Ed Malone was modeled on E. D. Morel, and Lord John Roxton on Roger Casement; the Lost World itself was based on descriptions of Bolivia in letters sent to Doyle by his friend Percy Harrison Fawcett.

The novel remains hugely influential and widely adapted today. The title might even remind modern readers of a certain very famous movie franchise about dinosaur theme parks!

About the author

Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is described by Wikidata as British writer and physician (1859–1930), with citizenship or national association recorded as United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and United Kingdom.

Recorded occupations include physician, physician writer, novelist, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter. Languages recorded for Arthur Conan Doyle include English. Wikidata lists canon of Sherlock Holmes and The Lost World among Arthur Conan Doyle's notable works. Open Library identifies A Study in Scarlet as a leading work in its author record. Open Library catalogs 9194 works under this author record. The Read4Max catalog currently includes A Study in Scarlet, His Last Bow, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Lost World, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and The Return of Sherlock Holmes under Arthur Conan Doyle's authorship.

Reading options

  • A complete text with direct section navigation in the browser reader.
  • A downloadable EPUB for phones, tablets, desktop reading apps, and compatible ereaders.
  • Book and contributor metadata are checked against the source edition before indexing.

Themes and ideas

  • Challenger, Professor (Fictitious character)
  • Fantasy fiction
  • South America
  • Prehistoric peoples
  • Dinosaurs

Table of contents

Open reader
Show all 19 sections
  1. Epigraph
  2. Foreword
  3. The Lost World
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. X
  14. XI
  15. XII
  16. XIII
  17. XIV
  18. XV
  19. XVI