Thelost world is asubgenre of thefantasy orscience fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian adventureromance[citation needed] and remains popular into the 21st century.
The genre arose during an era when Western archaeologists discovered and studied civilizations around the world previously unknown to them, through disciplines such asEgyptology,Assyriology, orMesoamerican studies. Thus, real stories of archaeological finds inspired writings on the topic. Between 1871 and theFirst World War, the number of published lost world narratives, set in every continent, increased significantly.[2]
The genre has similar themes to "mythical kingdoms", such asAtlantis andEl Dorado.
King Solomon's Mines (1885) byH. Rider Haggard is sometimes considered the first lost world narrative.[1] Haggard's novel shaped the form and influenced later lost world narratives, includingRudyard Kipling'sThe Man Who Would Be King (1888),Arthur Conan Doyle'sThe Lost World (1912),Edgar Rice Burroughs'The Land That Time Forgot (1918),A. Merritt'sThe Moon Pool (1918), andH. P. Lovecraft'sAt the Mountains of Madness (1931).
Earlier works, such asEdward Bulwer-Lytton'sVril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871) andSamuel Butler'sErewhon (1872) use a similar plot as a vehicle forSwiftian socialsatire rather than romantic adventure. Other early examples areSimon Tyssot de Patot'sVoyages et Aventures de Jacques Massé (1710), which includes a prehistoric fauna and flora, andRobert Paltock'sThe Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751), an 18th-century imaginary voyage inspired by bothDefoe andSwift, in which a man named Peter Wilkins discovers a race of winged people on an isolated island surrounded by high cliffs as in Burroughs'sCaspak. The 1820Hollow Earth novelSymzonia has also been cited as the first of the lost world form, andJules Verne'sJourney to the Center of the Earth (1864) andThe Village in the Treetops (1901) popularized the theme of surviving pockets of prehistoric species.[3]J.-H. Rosny aîné would later publishThe Amazing Journey of Hareton Ironcastle (1922), a novel where an expedition in the heart of Africa discovers a mysterious area with an ecosystem from another world, with alien flora and fauna.Edgar Allan Poe'sThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) has certain lost world elements towards the end of the tale.
James Hilton'sLost Horizon (1933) enjoyed popular success in using the genre as a takeoff for popular philosophy and social comment. It introduced the nameShangri-La, ameme for the idealization of the lost world as aParadise. Similar books where the inhabitants of the lost world are seen as superior to the outsiders, areJoseph O'Neill'sLand under England (1935) andDouglas Valder Duff'sJack Harding’s Quest (1939).[4]
Hergé also explores the theme in hisTintin comicsThe Seven Crystal Balls andPrisoners of the Sun (1944–48). Here the protagonists encounter an unknown Inca kingdom in theAndes.
Contemporary American novelistMichael Crichton invokes this tradition in his novelCongo (1980), which involves a quest for King Solomon's mines, fabled to be in a lost African city called Zinj. During the 1990s,James Gurney published a series of juvenile novels about a lost island calledDinotopia, in which humans live alongside living dinosaurs.
In video games, it is most notably present in theTomb Raider andUncharted franchises.
TheHanna-Barbera action cartoonSpace Ghost features a segment "Dino Boy in the Lost Valley", about a young boy named Todd who survives a plane crash and lands in a hidden prehistoric valley in South America. In anotherHanna-Barbera cartoonValley of the Dinosaurs science professor John Butler and his family - wife Kim, teenage daughter Katie, young son Greg, and dog Digger - are on a rafting trip along the Amazon River in an uncharted river canyon when they are suddenly swept through a cavern and caught in a whirlpool. Upon resurfacing, they find themselves in a mysterious realm where humans coexist with various prehistoric creatures, including dinosaurs. The Butlers meet and befriend a clan of Neanderthal cavepeople.
In movies, theIndiana Jones franchise makes use of similar concepts. Also comics make use of the idea, such as theSavage Land in Marvel Comics andThemyscira in DC comics.
Early lost world novels were typically set in parts of the world as yet unexplored by Europeans. Favorite locations were the interior of Africa (many of Haggard's novels, Burroughs'Tarzan novels) or inland South America (Doyle'sThe Lost World, Merritt'sThe Face in the Abyss), as well as Central Asia (Kipling'sThe Man Who Would Be King, Haggard'sAyesha: The Return of She, Merritt'sThe Metal Monster, Hilton'sLost Horizon) and Australia (James Francis Hogan'sThe Lost Explorer andEureka by Owen Hall (pseudonym of New Zealand politicianHugh Lusk)).
Later writers favored Antarctica, especially as arefuge for prehistoric species. Burroughs'The Land That Time Forgot and its sequels were set on the island ofCaprona (a.k.a. Caspak) in the Southern Ocean. InEdison Marshall'sDian of the Lost Land (1935),Cro-Magnons,Neanderthals, andmammoths survive in the "Moss Country", a sheltered warm corner of the continent.Dennis Wheatley's novelThe Man Who Missed the War (1945) also deals with a warm and hidden area on the continent, where there live humans such as the descendants of Atlantis.[5] InJeremy Robinson'sAntarktos Rising (2007), dinosaurs andNephilim emerge as the icecap melts.Mat Johnson'sPym (2011) describes giant white hominids living in ice caves.Ian Cameron'sThe Mountains at the Bottom of the World (1972) has a relict population ofParanthropus living not quite in Antarctica, but in the southern Chilean Andes.Crusoe Warburton (1954), byVictor Wallace Germains, describes an island in the far South Atlantic, with a lost, pre-gunpowder empire.
According to Allienne Becker, there was a logical evolution from the lost world subgenre to theplanetary romance genre: "When there were no longer any unexplored corners of our earth, the Lost Worlds Romance turned to space."[3]
Brian Stableford makes a related point about Lost Worlds: "The motif has gradually fallen into disuse by virtue of increasing geographical knowledge; these days lost lands have to be very well hidden indeed or displaced beyond some kind of magical or dimensional boundary. Such displacement [...] so transforms their significance that they are better thought of as Secondary Worlds or Otherworlds."[6]
Below is a list of classic lost world titles drawn fromLost Worlds: The Ultimate Anthology. Titles were selected from333: A Bibliography of the Science-Fantasy Novel,Jessica Amanda Salmonson'sLost Race Checklist andE. F. Bleiler'sScience-fiction, the Early Years.
La Gazette des Français du Paraguay,Le Monde Perdu, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - El Mundo Perdido, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle bilingual French Spanish, Numéro 9, Année 1, Asuncion 2013.
