The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals (dinosaurs and other extinct creatures) still survive. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character, an aggressive, dominating figure in a series of fantasy and science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Like Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger was based on a real person - in this case, a professor of physiology named William Rutherford, who had lectured at the University of Edinburgh while Conan Doyle studied medicine there. The Lost World was the first story, a novel, in the series of Professor Challenger.