Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• The Lost World
• "The true scientific mind is not to be tied down
  by its own conditions of time and space. It
  builds itself an observatory erected upon the
  border line of present, which separates the
  infinite past from the infinite future. From this
  sure post it makes its sallies even to the
  beginning and to the end of all things." Conan
  Doyle, The Poison Belt.

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Biography

• Family Born May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh,
  Scotland died of a heart attack, July 7, 1930,
  in Crowborough, Sussex, England son of Charles
  Altamont (a civil servant and artist) and Mary
  (Foley) Doyle
• Married Louise Hawkins, August 6, 1885 (died,
  1906) married Jean Leckie, September 18, 1907
  children (first marriage) Mary Louise, Kingsley
  (second marriage) Denis, Adrian Malcolm, Lena
  Jean. Education Edinburgh University, B.M.,
  1881, M.D., 1885.

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• Career Assistant to physician in Birmingham,
  England, 1879 ship's surgeon on whaling voyage
  to Arctic, 1880 ship's surgeon on voyage to west
  coast of Africa, 1881-82 physician in Southsea,
  Portsmouth, England, 1882-90 ophthalmologist in
  London, England, 1891 writer. Lectured on
  spiritualism in Europe, Australia, the United
  States, and Canada, 1917-25, South Africa, 1928,
  and Sweden, 1929. Wartime service Served during
  the Boer War as chief surgeon of a field hospital
  in Bloemfontein, South Africa, 1900.

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• He felt that he had better things to offer the
  world of literature than a series of detective
  stories in particular, he thought that his
  greatest achievements in fiction were his
  historical novels. Outside the realm of fiction,
  he believed that his most important writings were
  those in which he attempted to prove the truth of
  spiritualism and communication with the dead, a
  cause to which he devoted the last eleven years
  of his life. After having spent much of his
  career writing detective stories, Conan Doyle
  found it to be almost burdensome (even today he
  is stigmatized soley as the creator of Sherlock
  Holmes), so he attempted to kill that annoying
  little creation off in 1893's The Final Problem.
  It didn't happen, for a public clamour forced
  Conan Doyle to bring his creation from the brink
  of death in The Empty House (1903).

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• Doyle was a professional writer, in the most
  complete sense of that term. After he gave up the
  practice of medicine in 1891, he lived and
  supported a large family on the income from his
  writing alone. By the 1920's he was the most
  highly paid writer in the world, commanding ten
  shillings a word.
• Doyle was also a professional in that he wrote in
  virtually every form and genre detective
  stories, historical novels, science fiction,
  horror stories, domestic comedy, sports stories,
  poetry, and plays he even collaborated on an
  operetta--one of his few failures. A significant
  portion of his writing was nonfiction, to which
  he brought the same stylistic and storytelling
  skills that made his fiction so popular. He was
  knighted not, as many people suppose, for writing
  the Sherlock Holmes stories, but for his pamphlet
  defending British actions in South Africa during
  the Boer War of 1899 to 1902. He also wrote
  histories of that war and of World War I,
  articles on military preparedness, literary
  criticism, histories and defenses of
  spiritualism, and vindications of men unjustly
  convicted of crimes.

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• In spite of his prodigious literary output, Doyle
  was by no means a retiring, closeted
  intellectual. He was a man of action, large in
  stature--six feet two inches tall, two hundred
  ten pounds in his prime--and an all-around
  athlete, proficient in rugby, boxing, and
  cricket Doyle, his biographers claim, introduced
  the sport of skiing into Switzerland.

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• Doyle indulged his taste for real-life adventure
  by signing on as a ship's surgeon on a
  seven-month Arctic whaling and sealing expedition
  in 1880 as Pearsall comments, "his whaler types
  crop up time and time again in his stories,
  sometimes dressed up in army uniform." After
  receiving his Bachelor of Medicine degree in
  1881, he sailed to Africa as a surgeon on a
  freighter.

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• Although Doyle was not a great writer who
  communicated profound truths about the human
  condition, he was a good writer, with four
  principal areas of strength. First, his style was
  vigorous, clear, and readable.
• Second, Doyle was able, through concise, sensuous
  description, to evoke atmosphere and a sense of
  place.
• Third, Doyle could create memorable characters
  who, though not realistically drawn, are endowed
  with such striking personalities that they seem
  more real than many actual people.
• Fourth, and perhaps most important, Doyle was a
  master storyteller.

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The Lost World- The Book

• The book was published as a serial starting in
  March of 1912 and first appeared in book form
  during October of that year.
• The two professors in the novel were inspired by
  two professors from Conan Doyle's days at the
  University of Edinburgh. Professor Challenger was
  based on William Rutherford. Professor Summerlee
  shared many characteristics with Sir Robert
  Christison.
• Edward Malone and Lord John Roxton were based on
  Edmund Dene Morel and Roger Casement.  Morel and
  Casement were the founders of the Congo Reform
  Association.  They helped bring the plight on
  the people of the Belgian Congo to Conan Doyles
  attention. As a result Conan Doyle wrote The
  Crime of the Congo. In an ironic twist of fate,
  both men were charged with treason during World
  War One.

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• Challenger was, in many ways, the man Conan Doyle
  wished to be rude, crude, and without social
  conscience or inhibition. In fact, for the mock
  apparatus of photographs created for Challenger's
  fictional adventures, or for practical jokes, he
  would even dress up as the good Professor!

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Doyle and His Friends In Character
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• Of all these stories, the first three (of five)
  Professor Edward Challenger stories The Lost
  World, The Poison Belt, and The Land of Mist
  combined with Doyle's last published novel, The
  Maracot Deep, are the most important and the most
  central in illustrating his artistic and
  scientific vision. Some mention also should be
  made of his novel The Parasite (a story of
  possession through telepathy and hypnotic
  control) and of his cautionary, futuristic war
  story Danger! Both are of some artistic and
  generic significance.

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Images from the Original Serial
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Images from the 1925 Film
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Fun Facts!!

• In a 1996 scientific paper, D.M. Martill, A.R.I.
  Cruickshank, E. Frey, P.G. Small, and M. Clarke
  described a new meat eating dinosaur discovered
  in the north-western corner or Brazil...
  practically in Maple White Land itself! This new
  dinsoaur was named Irritator challengeri the
  generic "Irritator" because it was irritating for
  the authors to describe, and the specific
  "challengeri" "From Professor Challenger, the
  fictitious hero and dinosaur discoverer of Sir
  Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World."

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• I. challengeri is known only from the 80 cm long
  skull of what appears to be an odd looking,
  crested, fish-eater. The studies have found that
  Irritator did not have as pronounced a crest as
  originally thought. (and shown in the
  illustration)

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• Of the naming of his discovery, Dr. David M.
  Martill says
• "Conan Doyle was the first person to write an
  adventure story around dinosaurs... In addition,
  Conan Doyle invented a lost world based on the
  descriptions of high remote plateaus in the
  Amazon region. In north east Brazil there is such
  a plateau, known as the Chapada do Araripe. it is
  not so remote, but it has jungle clad sides and
  often has it's summit in the clouds. It is also
  one of the best places for fossils in the world."
  He goes on to say "...we felt that the character
  he created (Prof. Challenger) was such a
  colourful character that we wanted to get him in
  on the act. As he was a stubborn old git, and as
  the fossil dinosaur called Irritator presented a
  difficult challenge, we called it 'challengeri'.
  Thus it is a combination of Brazil, a lost world
  and a difficult specimen." (from a personal
  communication, Wednesday May 14th, 1996).

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What to Look For

• Critique of Romantic Victorian Notions
• Evolutionary Debates (When the expedition reaches
  the plateau, the members witness a primeval
  struggle for survival among these life forms. The
  significance of this is a reenactment of the
  prehistoric slaughter of ape-men by their human
  enemies a drama re-creating events at the dawn
  of human history. )
• The superiority of the scientific mind
• References to hoaxes of the day
• The Problematics of Race
• Tensions between politics/media sensationalism
  and the scientific truth

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Science and Reason

• Empirical observations (objective truth) as
  replacing moral/religious authority as truth.
• How is Doyle critical of media sensationalism in
  this regard?

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The Problematics of Race

• Race emerges in the 1600s as a means to justify
  colonial expansion.
• The problematics of this are evident in the Lost
  World. How does the work reveal the mindset of
  the day?
• The travelers are bringing information to the
  civilized world. European and Explorers of
  European Descent are discovering an inhabited
  area.
• The Ape people can be slaughtered with impunity.
• Yet, he also challenges anti-Irish sentiment of
  the day.
• He mocks Eugenics to some degree as Prof.
  Challenger and the chief of the ape-tribe appear
  almost identical as the stand beside one another,
  save the red hair of the latter.
• In what ways do his views express racial beliefs
  of the time, challenge them, and reinvigorate
  them?

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The Quest for Truth

• Note that it is accomplished through direct
  empirical observation.
• Arguments can only be settled by
  incontrovertible/observable facts.

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Why Dinosaurs?

• The Lost World is credited as the first Dinosaur
  adventure.
• Why Dinosaurs?

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The Influence of the Work

• How has this story influenced modern Sci-Fi?
• What ethical conundrums are posed in this work?
  How do they change and evolve as science evolves?