E X T E N S I O N FROM LOST WORLDS TO PSYCHOANALYSIS Haggard s masterpiece King Solomon s Mines1, published in 1885, became an immediate best-seller. In the book, a group of adventurers, including hunter Allan Quatermain, Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, are looking for Sir Henry s brother, who was last seen travelling north on a quest2 for the legendary King Solomon s mines. By the late 19th century, many explorers were uncovering ancient civilizations around the world, such as Egypt s Valley of the Kings and the Empire of Assyria. Inner Africa, however, had remained largely unexplored. King Solomon s Mines was the first novel of African adventure published in English and captured the public s imagination. The novel created a new genre, known as the Lost World , which would inspire Rudyard Kipling s The Man Who Would Be King (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle s The Lost World (1912), Edgar Rice Burroughs The Land That Time Forgot (1918) and H.P. Lovecraft s At the Mountains of Madness (1936). This genre is still very popular today. Examples of much later Lost World novels are Michael Crichton s Congo (1981), Jurassic Park (1990) and its sequel Lost World (1995). Congo involves a quest for King Solomon s mines, supposedly located in a lost African city called Zinj. Haggard s fictional genre was also a precursor to many successful films. Among the cinematic adaptations of Haggard s novel, three are worth mentioning in particular.The 1950 film version of King Solomon s Mines directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton, starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger, is remembered for its views of beautiful scenery and is also considered an important documentary about Africa and its populations. A second, adventurous version was directed by J. Lee Thompson in 1985 and stars Richard Chamberlain, digging. 2. quest: a long search. 1. mines: a system of holes in the ground made by removing substances such as coal, metal and salt by 81