Review:The Lost World and The Poison Belt/Christopher Roden
This review of the book "The Lost World" and "The Poison Belt", by Arthur Conan Doyle was written by Christopher Roden and published in the The Parish Magazine (No. 12, april 1995).
This review welcomes the convenience of a new paperback combining The Lost World and The Poison Belt, especially for readers who want a portable edition of the Challenger stories. However, the reviewer finds the book overpriced and disappointing in its supporting material, arguing that it misses the chance to offer a more substantial scholarly introduction.
Review
- The Lost World and The Poison Belt
- by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Alan Sutton Pocket Classics, 1995; x + 291pp; £5.99;
- ISBN: 0-7509-0822-X
Reviewed by Christopher Roden
It is good to see a new paperback edition of these two favourites featuring Professor Challenger: the last time they were available in a single British edition was in Murray's Complete Professor Challenger Stories, and this handy format offers the opportunity to re-live the adventures on a train, or perhaps a plane, journey. However, I shudder somewhat at the £5.99 cover price for what is only a modest paperback production. The handsome cover illustration, although having nothing to do with ACD or Professor Challenger, gives the book an attractive appearance, but the paper is of lesser quality and will, I fear, soon show signs of age.
Nor, as one might expect from so highly-priced a paperback, are we treated to a scholarly essay on the Challenger cycle of stories. Instead, Nicholas Mander, of whom the book tells us nothing, has contributed a brief biographical note on ACD.
Manders's biographical note is hardly an adequate summary of ACD's life, preferring to concentrate on the publishing history of Sherlock Holmes. And so, the enthusiasm for this reprint becomes tempered by disappointment that, once again, a publisher has passed up a splendid opportunity.
There is a distressing trend in Britain towards the highly-priced paperback. That in itself is no crime but, with Wordsworth producing perfectly acceptable paperback reprints of classic English Literature for £1 or less, the reader has a right to expect a little more for his or her £5.99 than is on offer here.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
