It’s hard to read The Lost World without thinking of it as just an adventure book, but it is really so much more. Doyle’s prose is so great it’s worthy of occasionally reading aloud, his scenes so roccus and entertaining, and his characters so witty and larger than live that it’s no wonder that he is the standard bearer of the modern novel. The Lost World is a story of three men living in a changing world, all of whom are trying to get it to match their expectations.

Our narrator, Mr. Malone, is a reporter and is the character with which we can all most identify. He is madly in love with a woman who would prefer a man with a spirit for adventure, and this love will bring him no end of trouble.

Seeking out adventure that will satisfy his love’s prerequisite, Malone strikes out to find the eccentric Professor Challenger, whose reputation for scientific achievement is rivaled by his conflicting reputations for grand boasts and ill temperament. When Challenger agrees to prove his claim that there is a lost world filled with creatures thought long dead, our Mr. Malone agrees to accompany him as an impartial observer. They are joined by Mr. Summerlee, a man of science, and Lord John Roxton, a man of action. While Summerlee serves as a comedic foil for Challenger, Lord John often steals the scene with his heroic deeds and tales. Lord John and his exploits are virtually equal in lore to the creatures they seek.

The events that lead to proof of Challenger’s claims are worthy of the greatest action stories and are worth reading for those aspects alone, but what makes a good action story is the romantic hungers (no, not that kind) guiding the characters toward the unknown. In 1912 when the book was written, the allure of the unknown was virtually gone in the world. The American continent was relatively tranquil, and the British Empire was venerable. There existed only a few places one earth to which one could travel and see something no one else had seen, and science threatened to explain everything so thoroughly that even then there was little mystique left to the world.

The Lost World offers critiques on the modern world that Christians ought to be aware of, for example discussions of evolution that are lively within the scientific community. It shows us a hopeful time, when faith and expectation could be readily combined with rigor to produce greater truths than might have been discovered.

The story is a human one where our four characters each embody some transition from the old world to the modern one, and perhaps the title The Lost World stands not just for a place untouched by time but the one mankind was losing to it.

Publisher: Many Editions Available
Genre: Classic/Fiction
Price: $4.99 (TOR Classics)