This study examines how prehistoric beasts morphed in the public imagination into mythical creatures, engines of destruction, and harbingers of cataclysm, taking their place in popular culture, film, and literature as symbols of 'lost worlds' where time stands still.

From the first illustrated edition of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1867, dinosaurs and prehistory have fascinated readers. Writers would time and again come back to dinosaurs as an element of fantastic fiction, often using these creatures--through the venue of the written word--to reflect the world of the writers' own time. This literary survey examines how paleoliterature originated, developed and matured to the present day. Also discussed are the ways in which dinosaur fiction mirrors contemporary ideas about subjects such as geology, the Cold War, environmentalism,...