The idea of a hitherto
lost place somewhere on Earth where evolution had stopped enabling dinosaurs to
stomp about was a popular one in the early twentieth century. Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle got there first with The Lost World published in 1912 (sadly he
never penned a crossover in which Sherlock Holmes fought dinosaurs) followed
six years later by Edgar Rich Burroughs’ Land That Time Forgot. The
story beats of both are remarkably similar and having recently watched the
Burroughs adaptations it feels like he copied Conan Doyle’s premise not just in
the scenario but the characters who undertake the journey and what happens to
them after arrival down to the eccentric professor and chauvinism aplenty
