Lord John Roxton, Tarini Khuro, Ghanada, Kakababu, Professor Shonku
George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character in a series of fantasy and science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unlike Conan Doyle's self-controlled, analytical character, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger is an aggressive, hot-tempered, dominating figure.
Edward Malone, the narrator of The Lost World, the novel in which Challenger first appeared, described his first meeting with the character:
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.
He was also a pretentious and self-righteous scientific jack-of-all-trades. Although considered by Malone's editor, Mr McArdle, to be "just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science", his ingenuity could be counted upon to solve any problem or get out of any unsavoury situation, and be sure to offend and insult several other people in the process. Challenger was, in many ways, rude, crude, and without social conscience or inhibition. Yet he was a man capable of great loyalty and his love of his wife was all encompassing.
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.
1929 – "The Disintegration Machine", concerning the potentially dangerous new invention by a scientist named Theodore Nemor.
By other authors
"The Footprints on the Ceiling": Jules Caister in his 1919 anthology of pastiches Rather Like. In the story, Edward Malone recounts how Sherlock Holmes was called upon to locate the vanished, seemingly kidnapped, Professor Challenger. The story also was reprinted in the anthology, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (1944), edited by Ellery Queen.
Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds: Manly 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. It is mentioned that Challenger helped Holmes solve the case of the giant rat of Sumatra.
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. Most notable is the Dell Comics adaptation of the 1960 movie version of The Lost World, as an issue of their Four Color series.
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 Conan Doyle's Challenger is a foe of scientific fraud, this novel begins with him preparing a scientific fake.
Challenger, alongside Nikola Tesla, plays a major role in two of Ralph Vaughan's four Sherlock Holmes/H. P. Lovecraft crossovers, The Adventure of the Dreaming Detective (1992) and Sherlock Holmes and the Terror Out of Time (2001).
"Sherlock Holmes in the Lost World" (2008) by Martin Powell in anthology Gaslight Grimoire (reprinted in Sherlock Holmes: The Crossover Casebook), in which Challenger is lost in the Lost World again and rescued by Sherlock Holmes. Challenger has a daughter who is also "Professor Challenger".
Dinosaur Summer: Greg Bear. Thirty years after Professor Challenger discovered Dinosaurs in Venezuela, Dinosaur Circuses have become popular and are slipping out of the spotlight. The one remaining dinosaur circus makes a bold move to return their dinosaurs to the Tepuye plateau. Challenger himself never appears, but the protagonist's son attended Challenger High School.
Theaker, Stephen (2000). Professor Challenger in Space. Silver Age Books. ISBN 0-9537650-0-8. In this sequel Professor Summerlee, Lord Roxton and the narrator Malone accompany Challenger on a journey to the moon, in a desperate bid to save the people of Ell Ka-Mar, who have crowned Challenger their king.
Professor Challenger and his companions are said to play a role in the upcoming The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. According to writer Alan Moore, Challenger had a lifelong friendship with the zoologist Dr. Dolittle.
The Gorilla Comics series Section Zero, written by Karl Kesel, featured a scientific genius named Titania "Doc" Challenger, implied to be Professor Challenger's descendent.
Cult Holmes: The Lost World: In this BBC 7 Cult Holmes story, Holmes is investigating the damage done by Challenger in bringing dinosaurs over from the Plateau. Interestingly, Malone's account of events is referred to as if it had been the version of events in the BBC TV adaptation of The Lost World, rather than the novel.
In Los Sabios en Salamanca (The Sages in Salamanca), a Spanish short novel by Alberto López Aroca, included in the book "Los Espectros Conjurados" (ISBN 978-84-607-9866-8), Challenger and his friend Lord John Roxton meet professor Abraham Van Helsing (from Bram Stoker's Dracula) in Salamanca, and attend a meeting of the Sociedad Hermética Española (a Spanish esoteric society). In the story also appear other characters, as H.P. Lovecraft's Randolph Carter, and Spanish writers Francisco de Quevedo and Diego de Torres Villarroel.
In the 1960 novel World of the Gods by Pel Torro (a psedonym of Lionel Fanthorpe), a malevolent shapeshifting alien takes on the physical form of Professor Challenger, believing him to be a real-life Earth scientist, and is then forced to remain in this form for the rest of the novel.
The third book in the Iris Wildthyme series by Obverse Books, Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, begins with a novella entitled The Found World by Jim Smith, a pseudo-sequel to The Lost World featuring Challenger, Dr. John H. Watson and Dracula, among others.
The third supplement for the Forgotten Futures role playing game is George E. Challenger's Mysterious World (1994), based on and including the Challenger novels and stories.
A descendant of Professor Challenger named Darwin Challenger is a minor character in Valiant's Turok Dinosaur Hunter comics, first appearing in issue #7. He bears a strong resemblance to his ancestor and makes numerous references to events in the Lost World.
Professor William Rutherford, real-life model for Challenger, is portrayed by actor John Sessions in one of the series of BBC Films titled Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes. The episode by Stephen Gallagher opens with the young Conan Doyle's attendance at a lantern slide lecture by famed explorer Everard im Thurn featuring the 'Lost World' plateau of Mount Roraima. The story goes on to hint at experiences that Doyle would later draw upon for the novel.
Portrayals
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the first person to portray Professor Challenger, dressing and making up as the professor for a photograph he wanted included in The Lost World's initial serialized publication in the Strand Magazine. The editor refused, feeling that such hoaxes were potentially damaging. Hodder & Stoughton had no such qualms and featured the image in the first book edition.
Wallace Beery played Challenger in the classic 1925 film version of The Lost World.
Francis L. Sullivan had the role of the professor in 1944 BBC radio adaptations of The Lost World and The Poison Belt. The latter was the only known dramatization of any of Doyle's own Challenger sequels until 2011. See below.
In 1966, Basil Rathbone played Professor Challenger in Dinosaurs!, a radio-style audio adaptation of The Lost World released on MGM/Leo the Lion Records C/CH-1016. In this version, the character of Lord John Roxton was not included.
In 1975, BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Lost World with Francis de Wolff as Challenger, Gerald Harper, Carol Boyd and Carleton Hobbs.
John Rhys-Davies was Challenger in the 1992 film version and its sequel (from the same year), Return to the Lost World.
Armin Shimerman took the role in a radio-style audio cassette/compact disc adaptation from Alien Voices in 1997.
Peter McCauley had the role of G.E. Challenger in the early 1999 cable-TV movie adaptation and the subsequent 1999–2002 television series.
A 2001 TV movie adaptation with Bob Hoskins portraying Professor Challenger. Airing in the UK in two parts over Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 2001, it was the first British film adaptation. Directed by Christopher Hall and Tim Haines, producers of the BBC's dinosaur documentary Walking with Dinosaurs, this BBC/A&E version (like all the other films) adds a female member to the expedition; here, she's the ward of an unsympathetic Christian missionary.
In March 2011 the first ever BBC Radio adaptations of When the World Screamed and The Disintegration Machine were announced, with Bill Paterson playing the professor in a specially commissioned series for BBC Radio 7. These were broadcast on 19 and 26 March, respectively.
On 20 and 27 March 2011, on the Classic Serial programme strand, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a two-part adaptation of The Lost World dramatised by Chris Harrald, directed by Marilyn Imrie and starring David Robb as Challenger and Jamie Glover as Roxton. In this version, Dr. Summerlee is now female, Dr. Diana Summerlee, played by Jasmine Hyde.
