From the Library
The concept of lost worlds began as an exploration of mythology and the mystery of incomplete maps. The blank spaces holding much allure for the adventurous and requiring conjecture and imagination to fill. Exploration of Earth is an obvious pre-cursor and early mythological lands, some of which are still the stuff of legend today, are also influential. Maps have surfaced from as early as the 1500’s that define ‘Hollow Earth’, Hyperborea, and Tartaria all of which have been interwoven into the fabric of our deep history and conjecture of the origins of our species. The classical romance of Arthurian legend inspired much of this, and the adventurous spirit of the time played a huge role as well. Adventure stories clearly played a massive part in this sub-genre, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas in 1844 an obvious influence.
From this came the classic group of iconic lost world works. We went to Wonderland in 1865 with Lewis Carroll and Alice, Jules Verne took us to the bottom of the ocean and to the center of the earth in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s, H.G. Wells took us into the terrain of the future in 1895, and L Frank Baum invited us to Oz in 1900.
In 1937 JRR Tolkein introduced us to Middle Earth in his story The Hobbit, this high adventure is said to have eventuated as a direct result of Tolkein’s experiences in World War One. The world Tolkein encountered fresh from university was politically troubled and he was expected to enlist. His entree to military service was at the Somme during a most brutal battle so the tribalistic brutality of war in the broken, hostile landscape became a feature in his epic series.
C.S. Lewis constructed Narnia for us when he wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950. Though not as dark or quite as ‘dangerous’ as Tolkein’s tale, the Narnia books were still full of adventure and daring battles. The added element in these of course is their use as a vehicle for Lewis’ religious instruction.
The ‘space-age’ of the mid-twentieth century introduced space travel and yet another unchartered expanse to be explored in another sub-genre and closer to science-fiction. The fantasy sub-genre in the adventure story context has been somewhat abandoned completely for the fantasy realm today, primarily because our awareness of the world has removed a lot of the mystique from the jungles, wildernesses, oceans, and caves. Therefore ‘lost worlds’ are a little thin on the ground, the fantasy genre provides a vehicle for the continuance of the lost world concept. However, a new generation of imaginative writers will find new and creative ways to provide us with those incomplete maps and the ambition to explore them.
