60. The Lost World (1912) - Part 3

Hello and welcome to Episode 60 and the third and final part of our exploration into The Lost World.

Read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Lost_World

And click through for Part 1 and Part 2 of our discussion.

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Synopsis

Having allied themselves with the Indian population of the Lost World and defeated their ape man oppressors, the Challenger expedition can now explore this strange realm in greater safety, although much of their energy is also expended in working out ways to escape from the mysterious plateau. Various elaborate methods are experimented with, but there may yet be a simpler route back to civilisation where they should reap the rewards of their hardships and discoveries. And they might not be leaving entirely empty handed…

Writing and publication history

This episode we look at Chapters XV and XVI which were first serialised in the UK in the Strand Magazine in October and November 1912 with illustrations by Harry Rountree.

Chapter XV – “Our Eyes Have Seen Great Wonders”

The party have suppressed the ape-men, who are enslaved by the Accala people, but are now preoccupied with returning to London.

Challenger creates a distinctly Freudian hot-air balloon: ‘Soon the flaccid organ began to slowly expand and show such a tendency to upward movements that Challenger fastened the cords which held it to the trunks of the surrounding trees. In half an hour a good-sized gas-bag had been formed, and the jerking and straining upon the thongs showed that it was capable of considerable lift. Challenger, like a glad father in the presence of his first-born, stood smiling and stroking his beard, in silent, self-satisfied content as he gazed at the creation of his brain.’

In addition to the language of imperial conquest, Roxton expresses classic imperial anxieties, both needing the help of the Accala people and fearing their motives. Ultimately the Accala provide a map to aid the escape which is deeply reminiscent of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838).

The chapter features several vignettes of life on the plateau including Allosaurus farming, large toad-like predators called Stoa and a mysterious phosphorescent lifeform to the east of the central lake. The latter is a call back to The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), and the then-recently published Bram Stoker novel, The Lair of the White Worm (1911).

The chapter ends with a sense that the Lost World is now truly lost, with Malone fearing it will be “vulgarized” by becoming “the prey of hunter and prospector.” Meanwhile, the party have completed their personal journeys, as befits the Victorian Quest Romance, with “each … in his own way a better and deeper man.”

Chapter XVI – A procession! A procession!

Malone relays his editor’s account of the tumultuous public meeting at which Challenger reveals final proof of life on the plateau, but are the public convinced? Lord John surprises the party with diamonds, which allows them each to pursue their dreams. For Malone, this means returning with Roxton to the plateau (presumably to hunt and mine), Gladys having rejected him for a solicitor’s clerk in his absence.

ACD’s shifts the narrative voice to McArdle, creating another artefact within the novel. This provides plenty of opportunity for humour, including the Duke of Durham falling into the orchestra pit. Nevertheless, the subheading of McArdle’s leader - “WHAT WAS IT?” – suggests some convincing of the public remains to be done.

The chapter has several names of note that connect to other works by ACD. Professor Sergius recalls Professor Coram in ‘The Golden-Pince Nez’, whose real name is Sergius. The S. S. Friesland, which spies the pterodactyl on its way back to South America, may be the same ship on which Holmes and Watson almost lost their lives in ‘The Norwood Builder’. The sceptical Dr James Illingworth is another variation of Cullingworth, aka George Turnavine Budd, ACD’s university contemporary with whom he briefly set up in business in Plymouth.

McArdle’s extract confirms the mission that ACD set out to achieve: ‘Apparently the age of romance was not dead, and there was common ground upon which the wildest imaginings of the novelist could meet the actual scientific investigations of the searcher for truth.’

The ending has ACD playing with the idea of scientific proof – what is enough and who decides? Taken with the description of the pterodactyl as a mediaeval gargoyle, ACD plays with ideas of belief and doubt. The burden of scientific proof is a topic that would occupy the last decade of ACD’s life as he sought to further the cause of spiritualism.

Lord John’s discovery of diamonds is an almost direct lift of Quatermain’s discovery in King Solomon’s Mines, down to the blue clay of Kimberley.

Malone is recompensed for Glady’s rejection by his discovery of new male friendships throughout the book, in another theme from Victorian Quest Romances. The topic was not a new one, having been explored in different ways in Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorain Gray (1891) and many other works in response to the ‘new woman.’

Reception

The novel was very well received, with Challenger praised as a character on a par with Sherlock Holmes. Nevertheless, Challenger never achieved the status or Holmes, partly because the stories that followed are so tonally different, but also as a result of The Lost World being labelled “children’s literature.” Challenger arguably lacks the depth of Holmes – although he is extremely good fun. The Westminster Gazette (26 October 1912) drew a direct connection to King Solomon’s Mines, and especially the dedication to a “man who is half a boy”, lamenting that ACD had shown his readers that they had outgrown such material.

In April 1913, newspaper reports circulated that a party from the University of Philadelphia set sail for the Amazon on a three-year mission to explore its tributaries. The leader was Dr Farrable, curator of the American section of the University Museum. “In the interest of science and humanity, they seek Sir Conan Doyle's “Lost World” or some scientific evidence of it, and for that purpose they will explore the basin of the Amazon.” (Dundee Courier, 1 April 1913). Note that the article was dated 1 April…

Legacy

The story is often mentioned by dinosaur hunters as a source of inspiration. In 1996, one team of scientists discovered a dinosaur they named the ‘Irritator’ - Irritator Challengeri. As the research paper notes: “Genus - Irritator. Etymology:  from irritation, the feeling the authors (understated here) when discovering that the snout had been artificially elongated. Species - challengeri:  from Professor Challenger, the fictitious hero and dinosaur discoverer of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle's Lost World.”

The Lost World – while inspired by the works of Poe, Verne, Bulwer-Lytton and others – went on to spur an entire sub-genre of novels and stories. These include Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Land that Time Forgot (1918) and its sequel The People That Time Forgot (1924), Vladimir Obruchev’s Plutonia (1924) and eventually Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (1991) and Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1995). ACD would himself return to the notion of a lost world, this time under the sea, in The Maracot Deep (1927).

Further afield in the Lost World genre is Lost Horizon (1933) by James Hilton. This classic adventure novel centres on a group of travellers who discover the mythical, secluded paradise of Shangri-La in the Himalayan mountains. Arguably, H. P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1936) is another, in which the lost world contains a horror that is ultimately unknowable.

Adaptations

There have been so many adaptations – mostly poor and not faithful – so we won’t mention them all. Praise goes to the original silent version, The Lost World (1925), directed by Harry O Hoyt, written by Marion Fairfax, and with stop motion special effects by Willis O’Brien. The team went on to make King Kong (1933), another variant on ideas in the Lost World.

Irwin Allen’s The Lost World (1960), starring Claude Reins, is a truly awful adaptation, which is not helped by scenes of animal cruelty. Transposed to the present day, there is little to recommend it, save the possibility that the party are consumed by predators off-screen…

The BBC produced a very good Radio 4 version in 1975 starring Francis de Wolff (Challenger), Gerald Harper (Roxton), Kevin McHugh (Malone) and Carleton Hobbs (Summerlee). Hobbs, the radio Sherlock Holmes of the 1960s, is especially good.

The BBC’s The Lost World (2001) is more faithful than most, although still makes big changes. Bob Hoskins is a rather too cuddly Challenger. Other cast include James Fox (Summerlee), Matthew Rhys (Malone), Tom Ward (Roxton) and Peter Falk (Father Luis Mendoza). It benefitted from the BBC’s CGI achievements with Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), giving us reasonably realistic (if budget limited) dinosaurs for the first time.

Next time

We have an interview guest, or it's another Sherlock Holmes...

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.

Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.