Lost worlds

Lost worlds (from the English. Lost world - "lost world") - a subgenre of science fiction and adventure literature , the works of which include a plot or motive with the discovery of lost and forgotten, or new, previously unknown worlds, countries, lands, somehow sheltered from the rest of the world.

It was formed at the end of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century from the late Victorian colonial novel during the years of the emergence of the fantastic genre and literature “pulp fiction” . It was especially popular at that time, and developed until about the 1940s, after which it gradually faded away (although individual samples of works periodically appeared afterwards), and the falling demand of the audience was partially offset by the transition of this topic to the cinema. Among the founders and classics of the genre are Arthur Conan Doyle , Henry Ryder Haggard , Edgar Rice Burroughs , Abraham Merritt .

One of the main varieties of the subgenre is the so-called. the motive of "lost" or "lost races" (from the English. lost race - "lost race"), sometimes isolated in an independent related subgenre. One of its distinguishing features, or rather, a prerequisite, is the presence in the found lost world of its micro-civilization - a rational or semi-intelligent human race (or other intelligent biological species), or its individual representatives.

The genre is often close to, or directly related to, works based on theories of the “hollow Earth” , which tell about the discovery of relics of past eras, as well as some works about ancient, extinct, mythical or fictional civilizations, continents and lands, such as Atlantis , Lemuria , Mu and others.