Professor Challenger

George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character in a series of science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was first introduced in the novel The Lost World, which describes an expedition to a plateau in South America where prehistoric creatures including dinosaurs still survive. This book appeared in 1912.

Related Topics:
Fictional character - Science fiction - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Novel - The Lost World - Plateau - South America - 1912

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Other stories of Professor Challenger include:

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• 1913 - The Poison Belt, in which the earth passes through a cloud of poisonous ether.
• 1926 - The Land of Mists, a story of the supernatural, reflecting the strong belief in Spiritualism Doyle developed later in life.
• 1927 - The Disintegration Machine
• 1928 - When the World Screamed

Like Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger was based on a real person - in this case, a Professor Rutherford, who had lectured at Doyle's medical school.

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Unlike the cool, analytic Holmes, Professor Challenger is an aggressive, dominating figure. Ed Malone, the narrator of The Lost World, described Challenger this way after first meeting him:

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:"His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size, which took one's breath away-his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. I am sure that his top hat, had I ventured to don it, would have slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face and beard, which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, the latter so black as almost to have suspicion of blue, spade-shaped and rippling down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The eyes were blue-grey under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger."

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