YEARS AGO, A P.I. OUT OF CHICAGO

BROUGHT JUSTICE TO A DIRTY TOWN.

NOW HE'S GOING TO PAY.

A sawed-off shotgun blast to the face leaves one man dead--and reveals a secret that has pursued another across an ocean and set the world's most ruthless criminal on his trail. The man needs the help of a great detective...but could even Sherlock Holmes save him now?...

Somewhere in South America, there is a plateau; and roaming in its forests are dinosaurs. Only one man has ever been there, and his reports are so astonishing that no-one is prepared to believe him; except the extraordinary Professor Challenger. He decides to take a trip to prove beyond doubt that this lost world really exists. With the daredevil journalist Edward Malone, meticulous, sceptical Professor Summerlee and the professional adventruer Lord John Roxton, Challenger sets out on a mission as dangerous as it is thrilling. Inspiring endless imitations, The Lost World is Sir Arthur Conab Doyle's classic adventure of discovery....

The letters of my friend Mr. Stark Munro appear to me to form so connected a whole, and to give so plain an account of some of the troubles which a young man may be called upon to face right away at the outset of his career, that I have handed them over to the gentleman who is about to edit them. There are two of them, the fifth and the ninth, from which some excisions are necessary; but in the main I hope that they may be reproduced as they stand. I am sure that there is no privilege which my friend would value more highly than the thought that some other young man, harassed by the needs of this world and doubts of the next, should have gotten strength by reading how a brother had passed down the valley of shadow before him....

From the first moment of their conversation a horrible misgiving had come over me. It seemed more than confirmed as I gazed at what lay before me. It was a little square box made of some dark wood, and ribbed with brass. I suppose it was about the size of a cubic foot. It reminded me of a pistol-case, only it was decidedly higher. There was an appendage to it, however, on which my eyes were riveted, and which suggested the pistol itself rather than its receptacle....