The Lost World

Professor Challenger announces that dinosaurs survive on a plateau in South America and dares the Royal Society to prove otherwise; a reporter, a sportsman and a rival scientist go with him to find out. Doyle wrote it in 1912, between Holmes stories, and gave the lost-world expedition its classic shape — every jungle-plateau story since is descended from this one. Fifty-nine plates from 1771 to 1899, including Rowlandson and Joseph Heard, range from moonlight ruins and clippers at sea to John Bull scanning the comet, matching the expedition's mix of wonder and discovery.