Arthur Conan Doyle · 1912 · river

Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 adventure, the original lost-world novel and the model for countless dinosaur stories since, in which the bombastic Professor Challenger leads an expedition to a remote South American plateau where the prehistoric past survives. Rollicking, inventive and hugely influential. The route runs from London up the Amazon to a tepui modelled on Mount Roraima.

1. 1
   London

   The irascible Professor Challenger assembles an expedition, two scientists, a big-game hunter and a young reporter, to prove that prehistoric monsters survive in South America.

2. 2
   Belem

   By steamer across the Atlantic to the mouth of the Amazon and the green wall of the rainforest.

3. 3
   Manaus

   Up the great river to Manaos, then on by launch into ever wilder country.

4. 4
   Boa Vista

   Up a tributary to the edge of the unknown, where a sheer-sided plateau rises impossibly out of the jungle.

5. 5
   Roraima

   Onto the lost world atop the plateau, a land out of time where dinosaurs, ape-men and ancient terrors still rule.