The Lost World

The Lost World (1912) is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's adventure novel featuring his second most famous hero, Professor Challenger. Edward Malone, a reporter for the Daily Gazette, volunteers for a mission with the eccentric Challenger, who's claimed to have found living dinosaurs in the Amazon. With another scientist and a big game hunter they travel to a volcanic plateau overlooking the vast rain-forest. Dinosaurs were totally "in" in 1912, so Doyle's The Lost World was a massive hit among teen-aged boys all over the world.

This story is told from the perspective of Malone instead of Dr. Watson; and Challenger's personality is aggressive and dominating (unlike Holmes's) - so Doyle was able to open up more with the narrative. Thus we find more overt humor and wise-cracks in this book, especially between the two scientists. The Lost World also falls into the popular "boys' books" genre, but since Doyle was unsatisfied with the typical character portrayals in these books, he gave his characters plenty of flaws and weaknesses, so they weren't so "perfect."