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Originally Posted by jetreader
One more thing
I belive that statement that "Haggard basically invented the "lost civilisation" genre" is a bit of exaggeration. It can be an interesting research - who did? Probably somebody in Ptolemeus times. Remember the story of Atlantida? But if we're looking for someone closer to Haggard times it's Jules Vern. He wrote his 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' 20 years before Haggard wrote his KSM.
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I really don't think that "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" counts as a "Lost Civilization" story; do you? The explorers encounter dinosaurs (in fact, it's the first novel to describe them!) but there are no people involved other than the explorers themselves. It's a "lost world" novel, but not a "lost civilization" one.
The legend of Atlantis comes, of course, from Plato's unfinished dialog, the "Critias", written in the 4th century BC, but again it's not a "novel".
Can you suggest any writer earlier than Haggard who wrote an honest-to-goodness "Lost Civilization" novel?