Professor Challenger
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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 a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered 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.
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.
- 1 Professor Challenger's life
- 1.1 Early years
- 1.2 Adventures in the Lost World
- 1.3 The poison belt event
- 1.4 Challenger's adventures in the Lands of Mists
- 1.5 The Disintegration Machine
- 1.6 The World Echidna theory
- 1.7 Death
- 2 Books featuring Professor Challenger
- 3 Professor Challenger on screen and stage
- 4 External links
- 5 References
Professor Challenger's life
Early years
The character was born in Largs, a village in Strathclyde, Scotland, in 1863. Not much is known of his childhood save that he was rumored to be a close personal friend of the famous naturalist Dr. Dolittle.
He was a gifted scholar and easily found a place at Edinburgh University, where he studied Medicine, Zoology and Anthropology. In the The Land of Mists, it's stated that although he was qualified as a doctor, he only practised for a few months before deciding to concentrate on his scientific work. This decision seems to have been the result of some crisis of conscience or confidence.
The Lost World states that in 1892, following post-graduate work at the University, he became an assistant at the British Museum, and was promoted to assistant-keeper of the Museum's Comparative Anthropology Department the following year. This post should have been ideal for a man of his talents; unfortunately, Challenger was never one to suffer fools gladly, and resigned after a series of arguments with one of his former tutors, Doctor Illingworth, and was still bitter over this argument in 1912 when his adventures in the Lost World took place.
The Land of Mists and The Lost World revealed that Challenger was a wealthy man whose independent income, later supplemented by patent fees from a series of inventions, was able to finance his continued work. Usually controversial and always brilliant, he received a series of awards and held several important posts while being cordially disliked by most of his colleagues. "Although it is easy to say that his opponents were misguided or rogues, there was no real reason why Challenger should have been believed. His evidence was little more than a traveller's tales" —Twentieth Century Scientists, Rowena Dell, 1988. During these years he somehow found time to go on several expeditions, to marry and father one daughter, and to publish a series of papers on various topics.
Adventures in the Lost World
Challenger's adventures in South America were recorded by Challenger's biographer, Mr. Edward Malone of the Daily Gazette, who accompanied the expedition. Following an expedition to Brazil, Challenger claimed to have proof that some prehistoric species still survived. Unfortunately, the backing for this story was limited; some fragments of bone, a piece of membranous wing, sketches, and damaged photographs.
Not surprisingly, few of his colleagues were inclined to believe him. Matters were not improved by intensive press interest, which resulted in Challenger assaulting several reporters. After two years of frustration, he finally persuaded the Zoological Institute to supply a group of unbiased witnesses, who would accompany a second expedition at Challenger's expense.
This story, originally a set of letters from reporter Edward D. Malone to the Daily Gazette newspaper where he works and later compiled by Malone as a novel, details the adventures of Challenger and Professor Summerlee, the hunter Lord John Roxton and Malone himself as they venture into the depths of the Amazon in search of a hidden plateau where Challenger claims dinosaurs still exist. Naturally, they reach this plateau, but become stranded there, and after various encounters with dinosaurs, the group joins with a tribe of Indians who live on one side of the plateau to eradicate a society of homicidal ape-people who live on the other. Once they make it back to London, it is revealed that Challenger brought a pterodactyl back with them, which escapes, causes a stir and then flies out over the ocean. Whether it made it back to the plateau or died en route in unknown.
After the expedition returned, there was widespread pressure for Challenger and his colleagues to reveal the position of Maple White Land, and several expeditions set out to find the plateau independently. All failed, and several lives were lost, mainly because the directions and distances mentioned in Malone's account were wildly inaccurate. High scientific and humanitarian motives were claimed for this secrecy; if the plateau were subject to regular expeditions and hunting parties, some of its species might soon be driven to extinction.
Many critics, motivated by jealousy, were noted to have said that the brutish and bad-tempered Challenger "was never in fitter company when he was up their with the monsters", and the prehistoric plateau was "'ome, sweet 'ome for him." Despite this, Challenger became life-long friends with Summerlee, Roxton and Malone, and the three were inseparable from that point on.
The poison belt event
Challenger was the only scientist to anticipate the so-called "Poison Belt" episode of 1913, and he and veterans of his earlier expedition were amongst the few to remain conscious during the incident. He coined the word "Daturon" to describe the aberrant ether that was believed to have engulfed the Earth.— Dell, Ibid.
Exactly one year after his return from Brazil, Professor Challenger shocked the world by claiming that some peculiar physical and medical phenomena might be caused by the presence of an unusual form of ether. Within hours, he was proven dramatically right, as most of the world's population lapsed into a cataleptic coma that lasted 28 hours.
Millions died, and it was widely considered the greatest tragedy of the still-new century. An eyewitness account of this incident was published by Edward Malone as The Poison Belt.
Challenger's adventures in the Lands of Mists
Challenger reacted extremely badly to the death of his wife in 1919. So when his daughter Enid and the journalist Edward Malone both became interested in spiritualism, and converts to the religious aspect of that belief, Challenger could readily understand their willingness to think that there might be life after death, but at the same time felt that this idea was a denial of the scientific logic he held dear. Always intolerant of scientific frauds (such as the so-called Piltdown Man), his natural response was to pour scorn on the idea, reveal the tricks of fake mediums, and otherwise make trouble for those he derided. This eventually led to a public debate on the matter, in which Challenger was allegedly badly prepared and supposedly came off a very poor second to the spiritualist James Smith.
Challenger's subsequent conversion to spiritualism has never been satisfactorily explained. Ruling out the possibility of genuine supernatural involvement, the most obvious theory is that he secretly wanted to believe, despite his rationalist sentiments, and eventually allowed himself to be persuaded that he had seen psychic phenomena. His love of his wife would certainly explain his willingness to accept that she still lived on another plane. There are suggestions in the only surviving account that his daughter—unconsciously or not—deceived him by imitating a tapping pattern used by his late wife,The Land of Mists chapters 2 & 16. and a medium assuaged his apparently guilty conscience over the deaths of two experimental subject early in his career, with the statistically implausible claim that they had died simultaneously of natural causes.The Land of Mists chapter 16.
Having thus become an overnight convert to spiritualism, Challenger proceeded to embrace it with the same enthusiasm he gave to any other cherished scientific theory, protesting against anyone who attacked it. A series of abrasive letters and papers were sent to various journals, which became increasingly wary of any envelope bearing his address. Several interesting articles on zoology, physics, and plant genetics were rejected without a fair hearing; one paper, submitted two months before the climax of the Hengist Down experiment, and outlining his "World Echidna" theory in great detail, was rejected by Nature and three other journals.
The Disintegration Machine
In 1927 Malone's editor asked him to investigate Theodore Nemor, a Latvian scientist who claimed to have invented a so-called disintegration machine [DM]. Nemor demonstrated the device, which apparently worked, and was able to make objects disintegrate and reappear unharmed.
Malone and Challenger left Nemor working on the machine, which had given Challenger a mild electric shock. They were the last to see him. The mystery surrounding his subsequent disappearance involved diplomats from Russia and Germany, accusations of murder, and a prolonged (but ultimately futile) police investigation.
The World Echidna theory
Challenger's "World Echidna" theory is bizarre, apparently insane, but correct, a triumph of flawed logic that happened to reach the right conclusions. Challenger purchased land on the South Coast and announced that he intended to prove that there was oil under Britain. This explanation was obvious nonsense to any expert, since the huge shaft he had built was totally inappropriate for an oil well. The excavations on Hengist Down were to continue for the next five years, kill four workmen, and exhaust most of Betterton's estate, while Challenger's paranoid secrecy would try the patience of the press, the public, and his colleagues. Suffice it to say that it was possibly his most spectacular experiment, with the widest possible consequences.
Within hours every active volcano in Europe erupted, fortunately without fatalities. Further afield, there was volcanic activity in South America, Japan, Hawaii, and the United States. It has subsequently been learned that Mount Erebus, in Antarctica, also erupted at about this time. Days later shocks were still being felt in many areas, and an earthquake in Chinakilled several hundred, while avalanches in Switzerland claimed nine lives. There is no proof, of course, that Challenger's experiment was responsible for these later incidents.
A few weeks later Challenger was asked to give evidence at an emergency session of the League of Nations. When questioned, he admitted that it might be possible to stimulate the World Echidna and deliberately trigger volcanoes or earthquakes. The second 1929 revision of the Geneva Convention banned all forms of "geological warfare", its language strongly implying that any repetition of the Hengist Down experiment might in itself be regarded as an act of war.
Death
His last paper, published in 1937, ran true to form; it was a rebuttal of the German anthropologist Herman Gauch's "racial science" theories, establishing (at least to Challenger's satisfaction) that the "master race" was in fact not the Aryan but the Celt, and in particular the Scot. Although Challenger had previously argued in favour of eugenics, the paper was almost certainly intended as a joke, but the Nazis took it seriously. Several replies were prepared, but Challenger never saw them. On January 8, 1938, during a visit to his family home in Largs, he attempted to stop a runaway horse. He was successful, but the strain of this effort was too much for his heart. He died early the following morning, his last words a whispered "I'll be back". His body was left to science; his brain and skull are still preserved in Edinburgh University, the other remains were used for teaching purposes and subsequently cremated.
Books featuring Professor Challenger
The Books in publication order
- 1912- The Lost World, which describes an expedition to a plateau in South America where prehistoric creatures including dinosaurs still survive.
- 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, about a machine that can disintegrate, transport and create solid matter.
- 1928 - When the World Screamed, on Challenger's World Echidna theory.
Other books featuring Professor Challenger
- Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds: Manley Wade Wellman and Wade Wellman. A slightly anachronistic romp, in which Sherlock Holmes and Challenger oppose H. G. Wells' Martian hordes and one of Holmes' old enemies. Holmes is the hero, but Challenger plays a major part.
- Osamu Tezuka published in 1948 a manga version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Tezuka's manga, however, is a Lost World unlike any other. Not an adaptation, this is a complete re-imagining of the story. There have been several other comic adaptations of Professor Challenger's exploits, but not too many and none that were particularly widespread and well known.
- Return to the Lost World: Nicholas Nye. A sequel set a year later than The Lost World, which almost ignores the dinosaurs in favour of a plot involving parapsychology, an extremely odd version of evolutionary theory, and ancient technology in the style of Chariots of the Gods. While Doyle's Challenger is a foe of scientific fraud, this novel begins with him preparing a scientific fake.
- Challenger makes a guest appearance in the 2nd Plateau of Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari's post-structuralist philosophical text Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, in which he gives a lecture.
- Professor Challenger and his companions are said to play a role in the upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series.
Professor Challenger on screen and stage
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the first person to portray Professor Challenger, dressing up as the professor for the photographs included in The Lost World's initial publication.
Wallace Beery played Challenger in the classic 1925 film version of The Lost World.
Claude Rains played him in the 1960 film version.
John Rhys-Davies was Challenger in the 1992 film version and its sequel (from the same year), Return to the Lost World.
Patrick Bergin played the angry professor in the 1998 film version.
Peter McCauley played G.E. Challenger in the 1999-2002 television series.
Bruce Boxleitner also played Challenger in the 2005 film King of the Lost World.
A 2001 TV movie adaptation with Bob Hoskins portraying Professor Challenger. Airing in the UK over Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 2002, it was the first British film adaptation. Directed by Christopher Hall and Tim Haines, producers of the BBC's dinosaur documentary Walking with Dinosaurs, the BBC/A&E version adds a female member of the expedition, the ward of an unsympathetic Christian missionary.
External links
- [An article on Doyle's The Lost World] - in easy-to-read HTML format.
- [The Lost World]
- ''["The Poison Belt"]
- [The Land of Mist]
- ["The Disintegration Machine"]
- ["When the World Screamed"]
References
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