The Lost World is a science fiction novel by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1912, concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive.

Edward Malone, a young reporter for the Daily Gazette, asks his editor for a dangerous assignment to impress the woman he loves, Gladys, who wishes for a great man capable of brave deeds and actions.

Challenger ushers him back inside and, extracting promises of confidentiality, eventually reveals he has discovered living dinosaurs in South America, following up an expedition by a now-deceased previous American explorer named Maple White.

His companions are to be Professor Summerlee, and Lord John Roxton, an adventurer who helped end slavery on the Amazon; the notches on his rifle showing how many slavers he killed doing so.

Summerlee retains his scepticism, despite being delighted at making other scientific discoveries in the fields of botany and entomology: even a glimpse of a pterodactyl at a distance fails to convince him, because he believes it is some species of stork.

The other guide is subsequently killed by another porter, a formerly enslaved black man named Zambo, who remains loyal to the party: but the latter is unable to do much more to help, other than send some of the company's supplies over by rope.

Whilst investigating the wonders of the lost world, discovering many plants and creatures thought to be extinct including Iguanodons, they narrowly escape an attack from pterodactyls.

At night a ferocious Megalosaurus is about to break through the thorn bushes surrounding their camp; Roxton averts disaster by bravely dashing at it, thrusting a blazing torch at its face to scare it away.

After witnessing the power of their guns, the tribe wish to keep them on the plateau but, helped by the young prince they saved, they eventually discover a tunnel leading back to the outside world.

[2] Doyle was aware of his good friend Percy Harrison Fawcett's expedition to the Huanchaca Plateau in Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, Bolivia.

[4] Fawcett wrote in his posthumously published memoirs: "Monsters from the dawn of Man's existence might still roam these heights unchallenged, imprisoned and protected by unscalable cliffs.

"[5] A 1996 Science Fiction Studies review of an annotated edition of the novel suggested that another inspiration for the story may have been the 1890s contested political history of the Pacaraima Mountains plateaux, and Mount Roraima in particular.