Line #52 Literature/TheLostWorld1912


1	[[quoteright:181:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9780141031293_1605.jpg]]
2	->For the ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' novel, see ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995''.
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4	Sir Creator/ArthurConanDoyle moved from [[Literature/SherlockHolmes detective stories]] to more fanciful fare with this 1912 novel of adventure and discovery.
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6	Pugnacious Literature/ProfessorChallenger claims that he's found a place in the Amazon cut off from the rest of the world and housing all kinds of species previously believed to be extinct. He sets off on an expedition to prove his find, accompanied by a skeptical colleague, Professor Summerlee; the cool-headed sportsman Lord John Roxton; and the narrator, young reporter Edward Malone. They soon find Professor Challenger's lost world, an isolated plateau inhabited by dinosaurs, primitive humans, and savage ape-men, but when the bridge back to the outer world collapses, their journey of discovery becomes a fight for survival.
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8	Inspired a bunch of films and TV series, including a [[Film/TheLostWorld 1925 film adaptation]] that featured groundbreaking StopMotion animation and was a TropeMaker for movies about dinosaurs, as well as two television series ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'' and ''Series/TheLostWorld2001'', and [[WesternAnimation/TheLostWorld a cartoon]].
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10	Followed by two sequels: ''Literature/ThePoisonBelt'' and ''The Land of Mist''.
11	----
12	!!This book contains examples of:
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14	* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Ned Malone is rejected by the girl he loves because he's never done anything adventurous, so he joins the Challenger expedition to prove himself. She marries someone else (a solicitor's clerk!) while the expedition is away.
15	* AdventurerArchaeologist: Professor Challenger is an Adventure Palaeontologist, who goes off into the depths of the Amazon jungle to find dinosaurs.
16	* AgentScully: A few. Chief among them is Professor Summerlee, who is Challenger's most ardent detractor and believes him to be nothing more than a fraud. He comes around halfway through the novel once they actually get to the lost world. There's also Malone's friend Tarp Henry, a bacteriologist who dismisses Challenger as a huckster just looking for attention.
17	* AnachronismStew: The plateau is populated by otherwise extinct animals from various different eras of the past, ranging from LivingDinosaurs (themselves from different periods) to Pleistocenic megafauna and early hominids. Challenger and Summerlee theorise that the ancestors of all those creatures must have been simply stranded in this remote area by chance through the ages.
18	* AvengingTheVillain: The expedition's treacherous guide Gomez wants to kill Roxton in order to avenge notorious slave trader Pedro Lopez, who was Gomez's brother.
19	* BigOlEyebrows: Challenger is described as having monstrously bushy eyebrows.
20	* BluffTheImpostor: When Malone is trying to gain Professor Challenger's trust by pretending to be a fellow scientist, Challenger quizzes him on various scientific terms, all of which Malone claims to be familiar with. Challenger then informs him that he had been speaking gibberish and tackles him out the door.
21	* BoldExplorer: Professor Challenger is a man of science who has no hesitation to set off and explore a mysterious plateau in the Amazon.
22	* BreakTheHaughty: At the scientific conference, Challenger and Summerlee's SmugSnake of a mutual rival Illingworth tries to discredit them, insisting only a living specimen of prehistoric life would convince him their story is true. Cue Challenger unveiling the captured pterodactyl, and Illingworth promptly shutting the hell up.
23	* BridgeLogic: The explorers reach the otherwise inaccessible plateau by felling a large tree to bridge the gap.
24	* BringItBackAlive: A Pterodactyl is dramatically unveiled in London, proving that Challenger was right.
25	* CannibalTribe: The expedition briefly passes by one on their way to the plateau, but they never actually encounter them.
26	* CassandraTruth: Professor Challenger ''knows'' there are LivingDinosaurs on a remote plateau somewhere in the Amazon jungle. He just can't make anyone believe him, no matter what sort of evidence he brings up (including hauling back a living dinosaur).
27	* ContagiousCassandraTruth: Members of his expedition, while initially sceptical of his claims (Summerlee joins it solely to prove to Challenger personally that he's a charlatan and a fraud), end up sharing Challenger's predicament - nobody buys their story.
28	* DaEditor: [=McArdle=], the Scottish editor of the ''Gazette'' who suggests Malone interview Challenger.
29	* DarkestAfrica: It's the Amazon delta, but otherwise played pretty straight, with intrepid white people plunging into the depths of the jungle.
30	* DidNotDieThatWay: When recounting their adventure at the conference, Summerlee comes to the point where Gomez and Manuel betrayed the group and were killed. He glosses over the details and simply says they "died faithfully in our service," as opposed to "they doublecrossed us and we killed them," so as to avoid having to give awkward and potentially incriminating questions about how the two died.
31	* DidNotGetTheGirl: Pretty much the whole reason Malone goes on the expedition is to impress Gladys, who claims that she is holding out for some kind of brave hero to fall in love with. When he gets back, he finds out that she's married a boring clerk.
32	* DisneyVillainDeath: Upon being shot by Roxton, Gomez plunges screaming to his death off of the pinnacle.
33	* DumbDinos: The various prehistoric animals, including the ''Iguanodon'', ''Megalosaurus'', and pterodactyls, come off as backwards, grotesque monsters that need to be subjugated for progress. Since they're so stupid, however, they can soak up a lot of damage and die slowly.
34	* EvilGloating: Upon trapping the expedition on the plateau, Gomez stops to give his MotiveRant, allowing Roxton to blow him away. {{Lampshaded}} by Malone, who points out that if Gomez had simply wreaked his vengeance and escaped, he (and Manuel) would've survived.
35	* FrazettaMan: The ape-men on the plateau, who become the primary antagonists for much of the novel. This example is perhaps a bit less MightyWhitey than some others, because the outsider main characters would be toast without the army of the more human natives of the plateau. Much is made of Professor Challenger's resemblance to the chief of the ape-men.
36	* GeniusBruiser: Professor Challenger is a distinguished scientist, and also an enormously strong, musclebound individual.
37	* GentlemanAdventurer: Lord John Roxton goes off on the expedition for fun.
38	* GreatWhiteHunter: Lord John Roxton is an expert hunter. One of the chief reasons why he's interested in the expedition is the perspective of hunting game nobody else has ever hunted before, and his skills, along with his stock of guns, become invaluable once reaching the plateau.
39	* HalfBreedDiscrimination: Many disparaging comments are made about the villains being "half-caste" (i.e. ''mestizo'', of mixed European and Indigenous South American ancestry). It's made uncomfortably clear that the heroes who say this think mixed race people have unpleasant traits inherently.
40	* HateSink: Scottish scientist James Illingworth, who both Challenger and Summerlee hate. Summerlee considers him his arch-enemy. Their mutual dislike of Illingworth is one of the two rivals' earliest bonding moments.
41	* HaveAGayOldTime:
42	** A semi-inflated hot air balloon is described as a "flaccid organ".
43	** The explorers are described as tossing "faggots" onto their campfire.
44	* HypocriticalHumor: Challenger sneers at the others' disgust with the blood tick found on Malone, saying "You should cultivate the scientific eye and the detached scientific mind." Summerlee promptly tells Challenger that a tick has crawled down down Challenger's shirt, whereupon Challenger screams with fear and rips his shirt and coat off.
45	* IAmOneOfThoseToo: Early on, Malone pretends to be a paleontologist to gain Challenger's confidence, but the Professor suspects something is up and asks him if he is familiar with several completely made-up theories, to which Malone answers in the affirmative.
46	* IDontWantToRuinOurFriendship: "Oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and pleasant!". It seems like Gladys just isn't in love with Edward, but he doesn't take the hint.
47	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The ape men throw their victims off of a high cliff to get impaled on bamboo poles. One of the first things the expedition finds upon arriving is the skeletal remains of Maple White's partner James Colver stuck to them.
48	* IntrepidReporter: Edward Malone, who goes on an expedition to the unexplored wild of South America for a story--and to win Gladys' love.
49	* {{Jerkass}}:
50	** Professor Challenger is vain, egotistical, obnoxious, and condescending. The fact that he's right about the dinosaurs only partially mitigates this.
51	** Dr. Illingworth is such a HateSink that virtually nobody sides with him in his efforts to discredit Challenger and Summerlee at the end.
52	* LastNameBasis: Professor Summerlee is the only main character whose first name is never mentioned.
53	* LivingDinosaurs: One of the earliest examples. Dinosaurs survived in the South American jungle.
54	* LostWorld: The high altitude and physical isolation of the plateau is the justification for why all kinds of weird things survive there.
55	* MammalMonstersAreMoreHeroic: The prehistoric mammals that appear --the Megaloceros and glyptodonts-- do not get the PrehistoricMonster treatment, unlike most of the dinosaurs, with the Megaloceros in particular described as a fairly majestic creature.
56	* MenActWomenAre: This trope is almost described word-for-word in this novel. In the first chapter protagonist Edward proposes to his girlfriend, who rejects it and basically says she is going to dump him. He asks why and she describes that she wants her boyfriend to be a man of action and heroism who is constantly acting, and she then says that women are meant to sit on the sidelines being proud of their pro-active boyfriends, and she says she feels he is not a man of action. This prompts him to undertake the journey which forms the plot. As this novel was written in 1912, it shows this trope is well over a century old. That being said, even here this trope is [[{{SubvertedTrope}} somewhat subverted]] as, while the party is away, [[{{Hypocrite}} Gladys ends up marrying a decidedly non-active legal clerk instead.]] Perhaps she was just [[HintDropping trying to let him down gently.]]
57	* MightyWhitey: The brave white folks with guns help the local tribe of ''Homo sapiens'' to defeat the ape men. And Roxton gives a bit of backstory exposition about how he helped end slavery in South America.
58	* MisplacedWildlife: None of the dinosaurs encountered (''Stegosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', ''Megalosaurus''/''Allosaurus'') are species known from South America. At one point, a sighting of a "scaly ant-eater" (another name for pangolins) is mentioned, but those are native to the Old World (''real'' anteaters ''are'' native to South America however). Partially ScienceMarchesOn in regards to the dinosaurs, since the Mesozoic fossil record of South America was very poor at the time.
59	* TheMountainsOfIllinois: A rare literary example. The plateau is explicitly somewhere in the Amazon basin. Even in Doyle's times it was common knowledge the basin has no plateaus and being, well, a basin, is almost completely flat. Ironically, there are places all ''around it'' in South America that would easily match the descriptions Doyle was going for.
60	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Professor. Challenger. Certainly fear-inducing in how he's first described--and he doesn't disappoint. "Pugnacious" barely scratches the surface of just what sort of enormous tool he is. Malone's first interaction with the man ends up with being physically assaulted, and he has to cover for Challenger just so the guy won't get arrested ''again'' for getting into yet another brawl.
61	* NotHelpingYourCase: As [=McArdle=] points out, Challenger's rudeness and short temper caused him to alienate anyone who might have taken his claims seriously.
62	* NotSoExtinct: Professor Challenger brings a pterodactyl back to civilization to prove the expedition was real. It escapes while it's being shown off, resulting in a case of species lost and found and then lost again.
63	* ObliviousToHints: Gladys, right from the start, makes it clear that she has zero interest in Malone. He is so oblivious to it, he embarks on what she meant as a SnipeHunt with full dedication and is genuinely shocked when she simply marries another when he's away.
64	* OffTheRecord: Prof. Challenger, who hates the hell out of journalists, tells Malone that nothing Challenger tells him can be printed without Challenger's permission.
65	* OhCrap: The normally unflappable Roxton is momentarily frozen in shock when he finds the "rookery of pterodactyls."
66	* OldRetainer: Austin, the Challengers' chauffeur. He's the only one of their servants who hasn't quit because of Professor Challenger's HairTriggerTemper.
67	* OnlySaneMan: After the war with the ape-men, Zambo advises that the explorers get off of the plateau before they get themselves killed. "It is the voice of sanity!" cries Summerlee.
68	* PayEvilUntoEvil: Roxton's standard M.O. when dealing with slavers is to shoot them. He has a notch on his rifle for every single one of them he's killed.
69	* RedHerring: As the gang is trying to figure out how to escape from the plateau, Challenger finds a mudpot that is venting hydrogen. It seems like a ChekhovsGun, and in fact he does later start building a balloon, but they never use it, instead escaping through a secret way in one of the caves. At least two different adaptations use it, each for [[StuffBlowingUp different]] [[HeroicSacrifice purposes]].
70	* RedIsHeroic: Roxton is a heroic GentlemanAdventurer who kills slavers for fun and has red hair. The natives even refer to him as "The Red Chief."
71	* SceneryPorn: Malone waxed rhapsodic about the "green, pellucid river" and beautiful country that they are sailing through.
72	* SecretTestOfCharacter: When he and Malone first meet, Roxton explains that his flatmate Sir John Ballinger is suffering from delirium and hasn't eaten. He's armed with a gun and will shoot at anyone who comes near him. Roxton asks Malone to help him tackle the guy and "give the old dear the supper of his life" in order to save him from starvation. After some hesitation, Malone agrees, only for Roxton to explain he already did it and he just wanted to see whether Malone would rise to the challenge or back down, in order to see whether he can depend on him on the trip. Malone passed with flying colors.
73	* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Inverted. Malone accidentally takes the group's shotgun instead of a rifle to explore the jungle in the middle of the night. He describes the shotgun as "useless" (it's loaded with bird-shot) and throws it away after a megalosaurus begins chasing him.
74	* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Roxton certainly thinks so, and makes a hobby out of killing slavers.
75	* SmallSecludedWorld: The plateau, which became a LostWorld full of otherwise extinct creatures as a result of its isolation and the climate zone it is in.
76	* StaircaseTumble: Upon learning Malone is a reporter, Challenger attacks him, and the two men go tumbling right out the front door of the Challenger house and down the front steps.
77	* ThisIsMyBoomstick: The humans native to the plateau are impressed by the white folks' weapons.
78	--> "...the natives looked upon us with a mixture of fear and gratitude, since by our strange powers we had aided them to destroy their hereditary foe."
79	* TitleDrop: "You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world", says Malone to Challenger.
80	* TokenEvilTeammate: Gomez and Manuel, who are "treacherous half-breeds".
81	* UnbuiltTrope: The heroes discover LostWorld. However, they never get any validation or recognition for their deeds, end up mostly mocked by the outside world and their biggest achievement is [[spoiler:Roxton hauling back a small fortune[[note]]He earns 200,000 pounds when selling them, which was over 14 ''million'' a century after the book's publication[[/note]] in form of a pocketful of diamonds]]. The SequelHook in the end is more about the characters' ''desperation'' to prove they were right than AndTheAdventureContinues - and despite Doyle writing books using the same characters, it is never turned into an actual sequel or the subject even brought up again.
82	* YouKilledMyFather: Gomez wants revenge on Roxton for having killed his brother Pedro Lopez.
83	* YouNoTakeCandle: Zambo, the faithful black servant who waits for the heroes on the other side of the canyon, talks like this. "What I do now?"

Context Literature / TheLostWorld1912