Audiobook · read by volunteers
Lost World
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
Read by Menno, Cori Samuel, Scott Mather, Robin Cotter, Claire Goget, Lizzie Driver, Reynard T. Fox · 16 chapters · 8 h 00
About the book
Four men set out for a remote plateau in South America, where a vanished explorer once claimed to have seen creatures that should have died out millions of years ago. The expedition is led by Professor Challenger, a booming, quarrelsome scientist who is impossible to ignore, and the narrator is a young newspaper reporter eager to prove himself. The 1912 adventure by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, is an old-fashioned tale of lost worlds, dangerous jungles and prehistoric monsters. It is also a story about courage, rivalry and the thrill of discovery. Along the way come strange cliffs, hidden dangers and the first sight of a world that time forgot. At about eight hours, shared between seven voices, it is fast, vivid and wonderfully old-fashioned entertainment for anyone who enjoys a good adventure.
Introduction
The Lost World is a 1912 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, who lived from 1859 to 1930. It concerns an expedition to a plateau in South America, in Venezuela, where prehistoric animals, dinosaurs and other extinct creatures still survive. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. Interestingly, for a seminal work of dinosaur-related fiction, the reptiles occupy only a small portion of the narrative, while much more time is devoted to a war between early human hominids and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures.
Conan Doyle is better known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, but Professor Challenger gave him a very different kind of hero: a loud, vain and brilliant scientist who delights in argument. The narrator, a journalist, supplies a more modest point of view and takes us through the expedition step by step. The chapter titles, many of which are quotations from the characters, give a sense of the spirit of the book, from There Are Heroisms All Round Us to Question and To-morrow We Disappear into the Unknown.
The novel set a pattern for later stories of lost worlds and prehistoric survival, and it has been adapted several times for film and television. Read today, it still offers a brisk plot and a lively sense of discovery, along with attitudes belonging to its own time.
The recording is divided into 16 chapters and lasts about eight hours. Seven LibriVox volunteers share the reading. It is a fine choice for a long trip, or for an evening when you feel like leaving the modern world behind.
Public domain
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text