---
title: "The Lost World (Doyle novel)"
chunk: 3/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_(Doyle_novel)"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:41.529856+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Characters ==
Professor George Edward Challenger – An energetic British zoologist with a 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 objects to 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.
Unidentified theropod – Large meat-eating dinosaurs that Challenger and Summerlee debate if they are 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.
Pterodactyls – Pterosaurs or flying reptiles; Challenger and Summerlee debate if they were Pterodactylus or Dimorphodon.
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."
Smilodon – Mentioned to been a possible candidate for the attack of the Iguanodon.
Phorusrhacos – A giant flightless 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."
Unidentified insectivore reptilian – Described as a "Scaly ant-eater" with no further explanation.

== References in other works ==

In addition to lending its title to this subgenre, the title of Doyle's work was reused by Michael Crichton in his 1995 novel The Lost World, a sequel to Jurassic Park, and its film adaptation, The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
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 ==
 
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 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".
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. 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 six feet in height, became an accomplished rugby union player, worked as a London-based journalist, and he loved a woman called Gladys. Furthermore, Fletcher Robinson and Fawcett both attended Newton Abbot Proprietary School between 1882 and 1885, which was a small institution, so they were likely acquainted with each other.
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."

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.

== Film, television, and radio adaptations ==

=== Film ===
Theatrical films:

The Lost World (1925; film)
The Lost World (1960; film)
Direct-to-video films:

The Lost World (1992; film)
Return to the Lost World (1992; sequel film)
The Lost World (1998; film)
King of the Lost World (2005)