The Poison Belt is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, the second book about Professor Challenger. Written in 1913, much of it takes place in a single room in Challenger's house in Sussex. This would be the last story written about Challenger until the 1920s, by which time Doyle's spiritualist beliefs had begun to influence his writing. Challenger sends telegrams asking his three companions from The Lost World -- Edward Malone,...

"Having assembled a crew of adventurers, the brilliant, blustering physiologist and physicist Professor Challenger journeys to a South American jungle ... in search of a lost plateau crawling with iguanodons. It's a ripping yarn-the first popular dinosaurs-still-live tale, prototype for everything from King Kong to Jurassic Park. At the same time, however, it's a philosophical novel, one that animates-in a thrilling, humorous fashion-the author's...