The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a novel by Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle, on an expedition to a South American plateau (based on Mount Roraima of Venezuelan Amazon rainforest) where prehistoric animals still survive. It was published in 1912 and introduced the character of Professor Challenger known. To be a fictional story set in ancient times, the episode dealing with the dinosaurs is surprisingly short: many more pages are devoted to a battle between a tribe of prehistoric men and a group of violent primitive hominids.