Lost World and The Poison Belt

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and author who in 1887 introduced Sherlock Holmes, arguably the best-known fictional detective. He also wrote poetry, historical novels, influential gothic short stories, and more. Doyle’s proto-sf series of Professor Challenger adventures include the novels The Lost World (1912), The Poison Belt (1913), and The Land of Mist (1926), and the short stories “When the World Screamed” (1928) and “The Disintegration Machine” (1929).

"Doyle’s Professor Challenger series made the planet and its processes strange again. . . . The strength of Doyle’s science fiction lies in its facilitation of an encounter between the reader and the biosphere they inhabit. . . . [and The Lost World] presents a playful meta-reflection on the genre that gives it its name. . . . Anticipates the windswept tableaux vivants of Jeff VanderMeer’s and Chen Qiufan’s contemporary climate fiction."—The Los Angeles Review of BooksIn Praise of the Radium Age Series:“Joshua Glenn’s admirable Radium Age series [is] devoted to early- 20th-century science fiction and fantasy.” —The Washington Post“Long live the Radium Age.”—The Los Angeles Times“It’s an attractive crusade. […] Glenn’s project is well suited to providing an organizing principle for an SF reprint line, to the point where I’m a little surprised that I can’t think of other similarly high-profile examples of reprint-as-critical-advocacy. ”—The Los Angeles Review of Books“Neglected classics of early 20th-century sci-fi in spiffily designed paperback editions.”—The Financial Times“New editions of a host of under-discussed classics of the genre.”—Tor.com“Shows that ‘proto-sf’ was being published much more widely, alongside other kinds of fiction, in a world before it emerged as a genre and became ghettoised.”—BSFA Review“A huge effort to help define a new era of science fiction.”—Transfer Orbit“An excellent start at showcasing the strange wonders offered by the Radium Age.”—Maximum Shelfs

• Series Foreword viiIntroduction xiiiConor ReidThe Lost World 1Foreword 3I There Are Heroisms All Round Us 5II Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger 13III He is a Perfectly Impossible Person 23IV It's Just the Very Biggest Thing in the World 33V Question! 55VI I Was the Flail of the Lord 73VII To-morrow We Disappear into the Unknown 85VIII The Outlying Pickets of the New World 99IX Who Could Have Foreseen It? 117X The Most Wonderful Things Have Happened 147XI For Once I Was the Hero 165XII It was Dreadful in the Forest 187XIII A Sight I Shall Never Forget 207XIV Those Were the Real Conquests 227XV Our Eyes Have Seen Great Wonders 247XVI A Procession! A Procession! 269The Poison Belt 293I The Blurring of Lines 295II The Tide of Death 317III Submerged 339IV A Diary of the Dying 359V The Dead World 375VI The Great Awakening 395Afterword: Challengers of the Known 409Joshua Glenn