Write your own The Lost World story

Edward D. Malone

Edward Dunn Malone is a young Irish journalist on the staff of the Daily Gazette, athletic and good-natured, who narrates the story. Motivated initially by a desire to prove himself to his beloved Gladys, he volunteers for a dangerous assignment to interview the notorious Professor Challenger. He plays centre three-quarter for the London Irish rugby team and possesses a quick wit, physical courage, and an eagerness for heroic adventure.

Professor George Edward Challenger

George Edward Challenger is a massive, bull-necked zoologist of extraordinary intellect and violently combative temperament, born in Largs, Scotland, in 1863. He holds numerous scientific accolades including the Crayston Medal for Zoological Research and has served as ex-President of the Palaeontological Society. He returned from a secret South American expedition with evidence of living prehistoric creatures, which the scientific establishment refuses to accept, driving him to assaultive rages against sceptics and journalists alike. He lives at Enmore Park, Kensington, with his wife Jessie.

Jessie Challenger

Jessie Challenger is the small, vivacious, dark-eyed wife of Professor Challenger, described as more French than English in her manner. She is sharp-tongued about her husband's impossible behavior and routinely apologises to his visitors in advance, yet clearly possesses a strong bond with him. She acts as an informal mediator, warning callers to retreat if violence seems imminent and able to calm the Professor even at his worst.

Gladys Hungerton

Gladys Hungerton is a beautiful young woman of dark, almost oriental complexion with raven hair and large liquid eyes, the object of Malone's romantic longing. She refuses his proposal, declaring she can only love a man of great deeds and bold adventure—someone in the mould of Richard Burton or Henry Stanley. Her romantic ideal directly motivates Malone to seek out dangerous journalistic assignments and ultimately join the expedition.

Mr. Hungerton

Mr. Hungerton is Gladys's father, a fluffy, feathery, untidy man entirely absorbed in his own opinions, particularly on the subject of bimetallism and monetary theory. He is good-natured but oblivious to those around him, and his tedious monologues drive Malone to distraction. He attends Masonic meetings and serves primarily as comic relief at the story's opening.

McArdle

McArdle is the crabbed, round-backed, red-headed news editor of the Daily Gazette who serves as Malone's direct superior. He speaks with a pronounced Scots accent and assigns Malone the task of investigating and exposing Professor Challenger as a fraud. Though gruff, he is fundamentally kind and recognises Malone's talent for establishing rapport with difficult subjects.

Tarp Henry

Tarp Henry is a thin, dry, leathery bacteriologist on the staff of the scientific journal Nature, and an acquaintance of Malone's at the Savage Club. He provides background intelligence on Challenger and helps Malone craft the deceptive letter of introduction. He is sardonic and sceptical about Challenger's South American claims, but assists Malone with wry good humour.

Austin

Austin is Professor Challenger's taciturn, swarthy manservant who also doubles as his chauffeur, filling the gap left by a succession of butlers who have fled the household. He communicates in minimal words, moves like a bronze statue, and carries out his employer's eccentricities without visible reaction. He is described as wearing a dark pilot jacket and brown leather gaiters.

Maple White

Maple White, of Lake Avenue, Detroit, Michigan, was an American artist and wandering Bohemian who died in a remote Cucama Indian village in the Amazon basin before the story begins. He left behind a tattered sketch-book containing drawings of prehistoric creatures and a landscape featuring a remarkable plateau, as well as an unidentified large bone, a curved specimen bone, and a cheap revolver. Challenger regards him as a co-discoverer of the Lost World and holds his name in high esteem.

Beaumont

Beaumont is the remote, grand editor-in-chief of the Daily Gazette, existing in a rarefied atmosphere far above ordinary reporters and dealing only with matters of international scale such as crises in the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He is seen rarely and communicates through McArdle, serving as a background figure who represents the upper echelon of Edwardian journalism.

The Chestnuts (Hungerton Home)

The Chestnuts is the Hungerton family residence where Malone pays his courtship visits to Gladys. It is described as a domestic setting with red curtains and a parlour, and it is here that Malone receives Gladys's romantic challenge that sets the entire plot in motion.

Enmore Park, Kensington

Enmore Park is the imposing, porticoed Kensington townhouse where Professor Challenger lives and works. Its heavily-curtained windows suggest considerable wealth, and the interior features a study cluttered with books, maps, and diagrams as well as a rotating chair from which Challenger holds court. The house has seen repeated scandals as Challenger hurls journalists down its front steps.

The Daily Gazette

The Daily Gazette is the London newspaper where Malone works as a junior reporter, filing stories on events such as colliery explosions and fires. It is run day-to-day by the news editor McArdle, with the distant Beaumont as editor-in-chief. The paper's office serves as Malone's base of operations and the starting point of his quest for adventure.

The Savage Club

The Savage Club is a London gentlemen's club where Malone encounters Tarp Henry by chance after receiving his assignment to investigate Challenger. It serves as an informal gathering place for journalists, scientists, and literary men where gossip and professional intelligence are freely exchanged.

The Amazon Basin and Uncharted Tributaries

The remote back-country of the Amazon, with its numerous uncharted tributaries, is the broader setting of Challenger's secret expedition and Maple White's fatal journey. Parts of this region were visited by Challenger to verify the fieldwork of naturalists Wallace and Bates. The precise location of the key discovery is deliberately withheld by Challenger, identified only as a point where an unnamed tributary meets the main river near a Cucama Indian village.

The Lost World Plateau

The Lost World is an isolated plateau in the South American interior, depicted in Maple White's sketch-book as a wall of dark-red, ribbed cliffs rising above pale-green feathery vegetation, with a pyramidal isolated rock separated from the main crag by a cleft. A thin line of vegetation crowns the summit. Challenger believes this elevated, cut-off environment has preserved prehistoric fauna from extinction, making it a living remnant of the Jurassic age.

The Daily Gazette

The Daily Gazette is the London newspaper employing Malone, representing the competitive world of Edwardian popular journalism. It is interested in sensation, exposure, and adventure copy, and it is through the Gazette's assignment structure that Malone is propelled into the Challenger affair. The paper stands in opposition to the scientific establishment and treats Challenger initially as a potential fraud to be unmasked.

The Scientific Establishment

An informal faction comprising institutions such as the Zoological Institute, the British Association, the Palaeontological Society, and journals like Nature, as well as bodies in Vienna and La Plata. This establishment is sceptical of Challenger's claims, considers his South American story a fraud, and has been alienated by his extreme rudeness. It represents the gatekeeping authority of Victorian and Edwardian science that Challenger is in open rebellion against.

Maple White's Sketch-Book

A battered, dilapidated sketch-book recovered by Challenger from the dying Maple White in the Amazon. It contains pencil and colour sketches of river scenery, local Indians, wildlife including manatees, turtles, and ajouti, as well as long-snouted saurians, and—crucially—a full-page coloured landscape of the plateau and a detailed drawing of a living creature strongly resembling a Stegosaurus. Challenger treats it with the reverence of a first-folio Shakespeare and uses it as his primary evidence for the existence of the Lost World.

The Unidentified Prehistoric Bone

A bone approximately six inches long and thicker than a thumb, with dried cartilage at one end, recovered from Maple White's knapsack. It is straight rather than curved, and bears a groove indicating a large tendon once played across it, ruling out a human clavicle. Challenger uses it alongside the sketch-book as physical evidence that an unknown and very large creature exists in the South American interior.

Challenger's South American Expedition

Two years before the story opens, Challenger undertook a solitary expedition to the Amazon basin, ostensibly to verify the field observations of naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. On his return journey he encountered the dying Maple White in a Cucama Indian village and retrieved the sketch-book and bone that became his evidence for prehistoric survival. He subsequently gave one press interview which provoked ridicule, then shut down all public discussion, responding to further enquiries with violence or obscenity.

The Weissmann vs. Darwin Controversy

A major scientific dispute of the era concerning evolutionary theory—specifically August Weissmann's germ-plasm theory versus Darwinian natural selection. Challenger delivered a provocative address on the subject at the Zoological Congress in Vienna that caused uproar among Continental colleagues, and he published a paper titled 'The Underlying Fallacy of Weissmannism.' Malone exploits this controversy as a ruse to gain access to Challenger, feigning expertise in the debate.

The Stegosaurus Identification

Challenger draws a parallel between Maple White's creature sketch and a published reconstruction of the Jurassic dinosaur Stegosaurus from a monograph by Ray Lankester, noting the distinctive serrated back fringe, fowl-like head, and great size. This is the cornerstone of his argument that a living prehistoric fauna survives on the isolated plateau. The creature in the sketch dwarfs a full-grown man standing before it.

Cucama Indians

The Cucama are an Amazon basin people described—in the patronising language of the era—as an amiable but degraded race inhabiting a village near an unnamed tributary of the Amazon. It was in their settlement that Maple White died and Challenger found the sketch-book. Challenger had previously impressed them with medical treatments on his upriver journey, earning their trust.

Key Events Before the Narrative Opens

1892: Challenger becomes British Museum Assistant. 1893: Appointed and then resigns as Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology after acrimonious correspondence. Circa two years before the story: Challenger undertakes his solo Amazon expedition, encounters Maple White's body, retrieves the sketch-book and bone. One year before the story: Challenger returns to London, gives one Reuters interview, provokes ridicule, and withdraws into violent seclusion. The story proper begins on a foggy November evening when Malone proposes to Gladys and is challenged to prove himself.