Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" focuses on a story about an expedition in the South American Rainforest, leading its four protagonists on a plateau which seems to surround a world believed to be long-gone. Confronted with dinosaurs like pterodactyls, iguanodons or stegosaurus, our main characters have to solve many difficult or even dramatic situations, and it's one enjoyable thing to read it. 
 "The Lost World" is written from the perspective of Edward Malone - at first as part of a recollection of the events leading up to the expedition, and later in the form of a notebook Malone wrote in order to portray the events during their expedition. 
 Doyle's characters are one-dimensional and not very interesting. Edward Malone is something like a doppelganger to John Watson from his Sherlock Holmes novels, while Professor Challenger himself, as entertaining as his arrogance and strenuous attitudes were, felt like a second Sherlock, only beamed into a new profession. The two other main characters, John Roxton (an adventurer who might have been an ancestor to Indiana Jones) and Dr. Summerlee (who was just present to contradict Professor Challenger's opinions) weren't too interesting at all, but it wasn't those characters which made the story so enjoyable. 
 It was its insight into prehistoric life and the depiction of dangerous expeditions which kept me reading. Doyle didn't give too much of an explanation about why dinosaurs were still living in this forgotten part of the world, but it wasn't what I expected to read, since the story centered around discoverers who were meant to investigate this part of the world, not to question its background. The story probably includes a lot of contradictions to what is known about dinosaurs and their lives today, but it depicts what people knew at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it is framed by an enthralling story which reminds readers of how expeditions in those days have really been: dangerous and unforeseeable. 
 Minor elements in this story include an unexpected betrayal, the protagonist's own romantic desires as well as an important conflict between two human races, but in the centre of it all, the prehistorical aspects are what brings this story to life. In general, it was a very interesting read, and while it will not be reminded for its characters, the story which includes one of the first views on prehistoric life in literature makes it a true classic.