The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, Fiction, Classics Hardcover - 2004

From the publisher

Written in 1913, roughly a year before the outbreak of World War I, 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.

It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August -- a date forever memorable in the history of the world. . . . It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events are still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the "Lost World" -- Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and myself -- who have passed through this amazing experience. When, some years ago, I chronicled in the Daily Gazette our epoch-making journey in South America, I little thought that it should ever fall to my lot to tell an even stranger personal experience, one which is unique in all human annals and must stand out in the records of history as a great peak among the humble foothills which surround it. The event itself will always be marvelous, but the circumstances that we four were together at the time of this extraordinary episode came about in a most natural and, indeed, inevitable fashion. I will explain the events which led up to it as shortly and as clearly as I can, though I am well aware that the fuller the detail upon such a subject the more welcome it will be to the reader, for the public curiosity has been and still is insatiable. It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August -- a date forever memorable in the history of the world. . . .