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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Lost Worlds </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 2 April 2015. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=lost_worlds'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=lost_worlds'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=lost_worlds'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div> <p>This rubric covers <a href="/entry/lost_races">Lost Races</a>, lost <a href="/entry/cities">Cities</a>, lost lands and <a href="/entry/islands">Islands</a>: all the enclaves of mystery in a rapidly shrinking world that featured so largely in the sf of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This subgenre was obviously a successor to the <a href="/entry/fantastic_voyages">Fantastic Voyages</a> of the eighteenth century and earlier, but there are important distinctions to be drawn. The earlier tales had belonged to a world which was still geographically "open"; at the time Jonathan <a href="/entry/swift_jonathan">Swift</a> wrote <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> (<b>1726</b>; rev <b>1735</b>), Australia had yet to be discovered by Europeans and Africa had yet to be explored. The lost-world story, however, belonged to a cartographically "closed" world: in Jules <a href="/entry/verne_jules">Verne</a>'s and H Rider <a href="/entry/haggard_h_rider">Haggard</a>'s day unknown territories were fast disappearing. The options were running out, and hence the nineteenth-century lost lands tended to be situated in the most inaccessible regions of the globe: the Amazon basin, Himalayan valleys, central-Asian and Australian deserts, at the poles, or within the <a href="/entry/hollow_earth">Hollow Earth</a>. These works are also distinguishable from earlier travellers' tales by their much greater "scientific" content. The new sciences of geology, <a href="/entry/anthropology">Anthropology</a> and, above all, archaeology had a considerable influence on Verne, Haggard and their successors. For a while, the fiction was concurrent with the reality (at least in the popular mind). From the discoveries of Troy and Nineveh to those of Machu Picchu and Tutankhamun's tomb, there flourished a "heroic age" of archaeology and scientific exploration, of which the fiction was a natural concomitant and to which the <b>Indiana Jones</b> movies – beginning with <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> (<i>1981</i>) (see <a href="/entry/indiana_jones_and_the_kingdom_of_the_crystal_skull">Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</a>) – looked nostalgically back.</p> <p>The fiction was often based on <a href="/entry/pseudoscience">Pseudoscience</a> rather than real science, for example the many <a href="/entry/atlantis">Atlantis</a> stories which followed the success of Ignatius <a href="/entry/donnelly_ignatius">Donnelly</a>'s nonfiction <i>Atlantis, the Antediluvian World</i> (<b>1882</b>). Tales of undiscovered worlds within the Earth tended to be based on the crackpot geology of John Cleves <a href="/entry/symmes_john_cleves">Symmes</a>. Perhaps the best of all inner-world fantasies (though not set in a full-scale Symmesian <a href="/entry/hollow_earth">Hollow Earth</a>) is <i>Voyage au centre de la terre</i> (<b>1863</b>; exp <b>1867</b>; trans anon as <i>Journey to the Centre of the Earth</i> <b>1872</b>) by Jules Verne, in which explorers reach a subterranean sea by way of an extinct volcano. Other <a href="/entry/underground">Underground</a> lost worlds include <a href="/entry/lytton_edward_bulwer">Lytton</a>'s <i>The Coming Race</i> (<b>1871</b>; vt <i>Vril: The Power of the Coming Race</i> <b>1972</b>), William N <a href="/entry/harben_will_n">Harben</a>'s <i>The Land of the Changing Sun</i> (<b>1894</b>), John M <a href="/entry/leahy_john_martin">Leahy</a>'s <i>Drome</i> (January-May 1927 <a href="/entry/weird_tales">Weird Tales</a>; <b>1952</b>), Stanton A <a href="/entry/coblentz_stanton_a">Coblentz</a>'s <i>Hidden World</i> (March-May 1935 <a href="/entry/wonder_stories">Wonder Stories</a> as "In Caverns Below"; <b>1957</b>) and Joseph <a href="/entry/oneill_joseph">O'Neill</a>'s <i>Land Under England</i> (<b>1935</b>). The Hollow-Earth story "Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole" (in <i>New Dimensions 7</i>, anth <b>1977</b>, ed Robert <a href="/entry/silverberg_robert">Silverberg</a>) by Steven <a href="/entry/utley_steve">Utley</a> and Howard <a href="/entry/waldrop_howard">Waldrop</a> is a pastiche of this whole tradition.</p> <p>The archetypes of the lost-race story are, in the main, unrepentantly romantic. Edgar Rice <a href="/entry/burroughs_edgar_rice">Burroughs</a> was an extensive contributor to the subgenre (with, for example, <i>The Land that Time Forgot</i> [stories September-November 1918 <a href="/entry/blue_book_magazine_the">Blue Book</a>; fixup <b>1924</b>] and most of his <b>Tarzan</b> novels) but its most famous exponent was a generation earlier: H Rider Haggard, whose lost-race fantasies include <i>King Solomon's Mines</i> (<b>1885</b>), <i>Allan Quatermain</i> (<b>1887</b>), <i>She</i> (October 1886-January 1887 <i>The Graphic</i>; cut <b>1886</b>; full text <b>1887</b>) – these two introducing the hugely popular erotic motif of the beautiful queen, or high priestess, who attempts to seduce the hero – <i>The People of the Mist</i> (<b>1894</b>), <i>The Yellow God</i> (<b>1908</b>) and <i>Queen Sheba's Ring</i> (<b>1910</b>); the publication dates of these novels span the period when the species was in its heyday. Other notable examples are William <a href="/entry/westall_william">Westall</a>'s <i>The Phantom City</i> (<b>1886</b>), James <a href="/entry/de_mille_james">de Mille</a>'s <i>A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder</i> (<b>1888</b>) and Thomas <a href="/entry/janvier_thomas_a">Janvier</a>'s <i>The Aztec Treasure House</i> (<b>1890</b>). The best-known individual work in the genre may be <i>The Lost World</i> (<b>1912</b>) by Arthur Conan <a href="/entry/doyle_arthur_conan">Doyle</a>, a perennially popular adventure story about the discovery of surviving prehistoric creatures on a South American plateau (see <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/lost_world_the">Lost World</a>). The species was popular in the general-fiction pulps but was in decline by the time the first <a href="/entry/sf_magazines">SF Magazines</a> appeared, though lost-world stories by A <a href="/entry/merritt_a">Merritt</a> – <i>The Face in the Abyss</i> (8 September 1923 <a href="/entry/argosy_the">Argosy</a> plus "The Snake Mother" 25 October-6 December 1930 <a href="/entry/argosy_the">Argosy</a>; fixup <b>1931</b>) – and by A Hyatt <a href="/entry/verrill_a_hyatt">Verrill</a> – <i>The Bridge of Light</i> (Fall 1929 <a href="/entry/amazing_stories_quarterly">Amazing Stories Quarterly</a>; <b>1950</b>) – proved influential on some later sf writers. John <a href="/entry/taine_john">Taine</a>'s <i>The Purple Sapphire</i> (<b>1924</b>) and <i>The Greatest Adventure</i> (<b>1929</b>) have stronger sf elements than usual, though somewhat vaguely described superscientific technology was common enough in the subgenre. Other authors of lost-race stories include Grant <a href="/entry/allen_grant">Allen</a>, <a href="/entry/ganpat">Ganpat</a>, Austyn <a href="/entry/granville_austyn">Granville</a>, Andrew <a href="/entry/lang_andrew">Lang</a>, William <a href="/entry/le_queux_william">Le Queux</a>, John <a href="/entry/mastin_john">Mastin</a>, S P <a href="/entry/meek_s_p">Meek</a>, Talbot <a href="/entry/mundy_talbot">Mundy</a>, Hume <a href="/entry/nisbet_hume">Nisbet</a>, Gordon <a href="/entry/stables_gordon">Stables</a>, Rex <a href="/entry/stout_rex">Stout</a>, E Charles <a href="/entry/vivian_e_charles">Vivian</a> and S Fowler <a href="/entry/wright_s_fowler">Wright</a>.</p> <p>Even from the 1930s, when fewer lost-world stories were being published, there were occasional popular successes. The film <a href="/entry/king_kong">King Kong</a> (<i>1933</i>) opens in a lost world. James <a href="/entry/hilton_james">Hilton</a>'s mystical Tibetan romance of <a href="/entry/immortality">Immortality</a>, <i>Lost Horizon</i> (<b>1933</b>), was a bestseller (see <a href="/entry/lost_horizon">Lost Horizon</a>). Later examples can be found in the work of Dennis <a href="/entry/wheatley_dennis">Wheatley</a>, including <i>The Fabulous Valley</i> (<b>1934</b>), <i>Uncharted Seas</i> (<b>1938</b>), which was filmed as <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/lost_continent_the">Lost Continent</a>, and <i>The Man Who Missed the War</i> (<b>1945</b>). As also noted in the entry for <a href="/entry/lost_races">Lost Races</a>, the setting of stories in Earthly lost worlds and lost lands has been largely superseded by offworld stories of planetary exploration and the <a href="/entry/colonization_of_other_worlds">Colonization of Other Worlds</a>.</p> <p>The lost-world subgenre survived longer in <a href="/entry/cinema">Cinema</a>, where a traditional <a href="/entry/cliches">Cliché</a> associated with this theme is the climactic destruction of the lost world, <a href="/entry/islands">Island</a> or enclave by volcanic eruption, earthquake, flood or some combination of these <a href="/entry/disaster">Disasters</a>. Examples given entries in this encyclopedia include <a href="/entry/son_of_kong">Son of Kong</a> (<i>1933</i>), <a href="/entry/lost_continent_the">Lost Continent</a> (<i>1951</i>), <a href="/entry/two_lost_worlds">Two Lost Worlds</a> (<i>1951</i>), <a href="/entry/unknown_world">Unknown World</a> (<i>1951</i>; vt <i>Night without Stars</i>), <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/jungle_the">Jungle</a> (<i>1952</i>), <a href="/entry/untamed_women">Untamed Women</a> (<i>1952</i>), <a href="/entry/port_sinister">Port Sinister</a> (<i>1953</i>; vt <i>Beast of Paradise Isle</i>), <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/incredible_petrified_world_the">Incredible Petrified World</a> (<i>1957</i>), <a href="/entry/monster_from_green_hell">Monster from Green Hell</a> (<i>1957</i>), <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/lost_world_the">Lost World</a> (<i>1960</i>) and <a href="/entry/atlantis_the_lost_continent">Atlantis, the Lost Continent</a> (<i>1961</i>). [DP/BS/PN/DRL]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/apes_as_human">Apes as Human</a>; <a href="/entry/pastoral">Pastoral</a>; <a href="/entry/worlds_of_ultima">Worlds of Ultima</a>.</p> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lost_worlds' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; float: left;'> </ul> <p align=center style="float:right; padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;">ISSN 3049-7612<br /> <a href="/facts.php?id=logo"> <img src="/images/VitMan.gif" width=150 height=150 title="Click for larger version of this SFE logo"></a><br /> <b><a href="/donate.php"><img src="/images/Paypal-Donate.gif" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="26" BORDER="0" /></a><br /><a href="/">Home/Welcome page</a></b></p><div style="margin-bottom:10px;"></div></div> </aside><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2><i>SFE</i> Special Features<span></span></h2><p style="margin-top: 10px;"><input type="button" value="What’s New" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/whatsnew.php'">  Latest entries; 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