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The Land That Time Forgot (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Land That Time Forgot is an Edgar Rice Burroughs
science fiction novel, the first of his Caspak trilogy. His working title for the story was "The Lost U-Boat." The sequence was first published in Blue Book Magazine
as a three-part serial in the issues for September, October and November 1918. The complete trilogy was later combined for publication in book form under the title of the first part by A. C. McClurg
in June, 1924. Beginning with the Ace Books
editions of the 1960s, the three segments have usually been issued as separate short novels. The first of these is treated in this article.
story reminiscent of such novels as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The Lost World
(1912) and Jules Verne’s
The Mysterious Island
(1874) and Journey to the Center of the Earth
(1864). Burroughs adds his own twist by postulating a unique biological system for his lost world, in which the slow progress of evolution
in the world outside is recapitulated as a matter of individual metamorphosis. This system is only hinted at in The Land That Time Forgot; presented as a mystery whose explication is gradually worked out over the course of the next two novels, it forms a thematic element serving to unite three otherwise rather loosely linked stories.
The novel is set in World War I
and opens with a framing story in which a manuscript relating the main story is recovered from a thermos off the coast of Greenland
. It purports to be the narrative of Bowen J. Tyler, an American
passenger on a ship sunk in the English Channel
by the U-33
, a German
U-boat
, in 1916. He is rescued by a British
tugboat with another survivor, Lys La Rue. The tug is also sunk, but its crew manages to capture the submarine when it surfaces. Unfortunately, all other British craft continue to regard the sub as an enemy, and they are unable to bring it to port. Sabotage to the navigation equipment sends the U-33 astray into the South Atlantic
. The imprisoned German crew retakes the sub and begins a raiding cruise, only to be overcome again by the British. A saboteur continues to guide the sub off course, and by the time he is found out it is in Antarctic
waters.
The U-33 is now low on fuel, with its provisions poisoned by the saboteur Benson. A large island ringed by cliffs is encountered, and identified as Caprona
, a land mass first reported by the (fictitious) Italian
explorer Caproni in 1721 whose location was subsequently lost. A freshwater current guides the sub to a stream issuing from a subterranean passage, which is entered on the hope of replenishing the water supply. The U-boat surfaces into a tropical river teeming with primitive creatures extinct elsewhere; attacked, it submerges again and travels upstream in search of a safe harbor. It enters a thermal inland sea, essentially a huge crater lake
, whose heat sustains Caprona’s tropical climate. As the sub travels north along the island’s waterways the climate moderates and wildlife undergoes an apparent evolution
ary progression.
On the shore of the lake the crew builds a palisaded base, dubbed Fort Dinosaur
for the area’s prehistoric fauna. The British and Germans agree to work together under Tyler, with Bradley, the mate from the tug, as second in command and Von Schoenvorts, the original sub commander, in control of the Germans. The castaways are attacked by horde of beast men and take prisoner Ahm, a Neanderthal
. They learn that the native name for the island is Caspak. Oil is discovered, which they hope to refine into fuel for the U-33. As they set up operations, Bradley undertakes various explorations. During his absence Lys disappears and the Germans mutiny again, absconding with the submarine.
Tyler leaves the other survivors to seek and rescue Lys. A series of adventures ensues among various bands of near human primitives, each representing a different stage of human advancement, as represented by their weaponry. Tyler rescues Lys from a group of Sto-lu (hatchet men), and later aids the escape of a woman of the Band-lu (spearmen) to the Kro-lu (bowmen). Lys is lost again, and chance discoveries of the graves of two men associated with Bradley’s expedition leaves Tyler in despair of that party’s fate. Unable to find his way back to Fort Dinosaur, he retreats to the barrier cliffs ringing Caspak in a vain hope of attracting rescue from some passing ship. Improbably reunited with Lys, he sets up house with her, completes the account of his adventures which he has been writing, and casts it out to sea in his thermos.
reviewer Floyd C. Gale, discussing a 1963 reprint, described the novel as "sheer, headlong adventure that is unusual even for an ERB thriller."
for this story has expired in the United States and, thus, now resides in the public domain
there. The text is available via Project Gutenberg
.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
science fiction novel, the first of his Caspak trilogy. His working title for the story was "The Lost U-Boat." The sequence was first published in Blue Book Magazine
Blue Book (magazine)
Blue Book was a popular 20th-century American magazine with a lengthy 70-year run under various titles from 1905 to 1975.Launched as The Monthly Story Magazine, it was published under that title from May 1905 to August 1906 with a change to The Monthly Story Blue Book Magazine for issues from...
as a three-part serial in the issues for September, October and November 1918. The complete trilogy was later combined for publication in book form under the title of the first part by A. C. McClurg
A. C. McClurg
A. C. McClurg was a Chicago based publisher made famous by their original publishing of the Tarzan of the Apes novels and other stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs....
in June, 1924. Beginning with the Ace Books
Ace Books
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
editions of the 1960s, the three segments have usually been issued as separate short novels. The first of these is treated in this article.
Plot introduction
Starting out as a harrowing wartime sea adventure, Burroughs’s story ultimately develops into a lost worldLost World (genre)
The Lost World literary genre is a fantasy or science fiction genre that involves the discovery of a new world out of time, place, or both. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian imperial romance and remains popular to this day....
story reminiscent of such novels as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
The Lost World
The Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle)
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 still survive. It was originally published serially in the popular Strand Magazine during the months of April 1912-November 1912...
(1912) and Jules Verne’s
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
The Mysterious Island
The Mysterious Island
The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is...
(1874) and Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Journey to the Center of the Earth is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves a German professor who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the center of the Earth...
(1864). Burroughs adds his own twist by postulating a unique biological system for his lost world, in which the slow progress of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
in the world outside is recapitulated as a matter of individual metamorphosis. This system is only hinted at in The Land That Time Forgot; presented as a mystery whose explication is gradually worked out over the course of the next two novels, it forms a thematic element serving to unite three otherwise rather loosely linked stories.
Plot summary
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and opens with a framing story in which a manuscript relating the main story is recovered from a thermos off the coast of Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. It purports to be the narrative of Bowen J. Tyler, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
passenger on a ship sunk in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
by the U-33
SM U-33
SM U-33 was a German Type U 31 U-boat of the Kaiserliche Marine.-SS Brussels:On 28 March 1916, U-33 ordered the Great Eastern Railway's to stop...
, a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
, in 1916. He is rescued by a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
tugboat with another survivor, Lys La Rue. The tug is also sunk, but its crew manages to capture the submarine when it surfaces. Unfortunately, all other British craft continue to regard the sub as an enemy, and they are unable to bring it to port. Sabotage to the navigation equipment sends the U-33 astray into the South Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. The imprisoned German crew retakes the sub and begins a raiding cruise, only to be overcome again by the British. A saboteur continues to guide the sub off course, and by the time he is found out it is in Antarctic
Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...
waters.
The U-33 is now low on fuel, with its provisions poisoned by the saboteur Benson. A large island ringed by cliffs is encountered, and identified as Caprona
Caprona (island)
Caprona is a fictitious island in the literary universe of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Caspak trilogy, including The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, and Out of Time's Abyss.-The Island:...
, a land mass first reported by the (fictitious) Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
explorer Caproni in 1721 whose location was subsequently lost. A freshwater current guides the sub to a stream issuing from a subterranean passage, which is entered on the hope of replenishing the water supply. The U-boat surfaces into a tropical river teeming with primitive creatures extinct elsewhere; attacked, it submerges again and travels upstream in search of a safe harbor. It enters a thermal inland sea, essentially a huge crater lake
Crater lake
A crater lake is a lake that forms in a volcanic crater or caldera, such as a maar; less commonly and with lower association to the term a lake may form in an impact crater caused by a meteorite. Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not...
, whose heat sustains Caprona’s tropical climate. As the sub travels north along the island’s waterways the climate moderates and wildlife undergoes an apparent evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary progression.
On the shore of the lake the crew builds a palisaded base, dubbed Fort Dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
for the area’s prehistoric fauna. The British and Germans agree to work together under Tyler, with Bradley, the mate from the tug, as second in command and Von Schoenvorts, the original sub commander, in control of the Germans. The castaways are attacked by horde of beast men and take prisoner Ahm, a Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
. They learn that the native name for the island is Caspak. Oil is discovered, which they hope to refine into fuel for the U-33. As they set up operations, Bradley undertakes various explorations. During his absence Lys disappears and the Germans mutiny again, absconding with the submarine.
Tyler leaves the other survivors to seek and rescue Lys. A series of adventures ensues among various bands of near human primitives, each representing a different stage of human advancement, as represented by their weaponry. Tyler rescues Lys from a group of Sto-lu (hatchet men), and later aids the escape of a woman of the Band-lu (spearmen) to the Kro-lu (bowmen). Lys is lost again, and chance discoveries of the graves of two men associated with Bradley’s expedition leaves Tyler in despair of that party’s fate. Unable to find his way back to Fort Dinosaur, he retreats to the barrier cliffs ringing Caspak in a vain hope of attracting rescue from some passing ship. Improbably reunited with Lys, he sets up house with her, completes the account of his adventures which he has been writing, and casts it out to sea in his thermos.
Critical reception
GalaxyGalaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
reviewer Floyd C. Gale, discussing a 1963 reprint, described the novel as "sheer, headlong adventure that is unusual even for an ERB thriller."
Copyright
The copyrightCopyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
for this story has expired in the United States and, thus, now resides in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
there. The text is available via Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- The novel was adapted to film in 1975 under the direction of Kevin ConnorKevin Connor (director)Kevin Connor is an English film and television director currently based in Hollywood.Connor was born in London on the 24 of September 1937 and grew up during the 2nd World War...
by BritainUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's Amicus ProductionsAmicus ProductionsAmicus Productions is a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England. It was founded by American producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.-Horror:...
. The movie was a sleeper hitSleeper hitA sleeper hit, a.k.a. surprise hit , refers to a film, book, single, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition...
and inspired Amicus to make two more Burroughs adaptations, At the Earth's CoreAt the Earth's Core (film)At the Earth's Core is a 1976 science fiction film produced by Britain's Amicus Productions. It was directed by Kevin Connor and starred Peter Cushing, Caroline Munro, Philippa Herring and Doug McClure. It was filmed in Technicolor...
(1976) , an adaptation of the first book in the PellucidarPellucidarPellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth milieu invented by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a notable crossover event between Burroughs' series, there is a Tarzan story in which the Ape Man travels into Pellucidar.The stories initially involve the...
series, and The People That Time ForgotThe People That Time Forgot (film)The People That Time Forgot is a 1977 fantasy/adventure film based on the novel The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was produced by Britain's Amicus Productions, all directed by Kevin Connor...
(1977), a direct sequel to Land based on the second bookThe People That Time Forgot (novel)The People That Time Forgot is an Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel, the second of his Caspak trilogy. The sequence was first published in Blue Book Magazine as a three-part serial in the issues for September, October and November 1918, with The People That Time Forgot forming the second...
of the Caspak series. All three films were distributed in the United States by American International PicturesAmerican International PicturesAmerican International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
.
- A second film adaptationThe Land That Time Forgot (2009 film)The Land That Time Forgot is a 2009 science fiction film by independent American film studio The Asylum. The film is an adaptation of the 1918 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name, and a re-make of the 1975 Amicus film starring Doug McClure...
produced by AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
studio The AsylumThe AsylumThe Asylum is an American film studio and distributor which focuses on producing low-budget, usually direct-to-video productions. The studio has produced titles that capitalize on productions by major studios; these titles have been dubbed "mockbusters" by the press.-History:The Asylum was founded...
was released in 2009.
- DC ComicsDC ComicsDC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
featured similar themes in "The War that Time ForgotThe War that Time ForgotThe War that Time Forgot was a comic book feature published by DC Comics beginning in 1960 in the title Star Spangled War Stories, created by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito...
", where World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
soldiers are stranded on a dinosaur-haunted Pacific island.