Professor Challenger

Professor Challenger is a fictional professor from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Yes. That guy). He starred in a series of books (starting with The Lost World) usually narrated by his friend Edward Malone.

Novels: Short stories:
 * 1912 - The Lost World, which describes an expedition to a plateau in South America where ancient creatures, including dinosaurs, still survive.
 * 1913 - The Poison Belt, in which the Earth passes through a cloud of poisonous ether.
 * 1926 - The Land of Mist, an Author Tract on spiritualism.
 * 1928 - When the World Screamed, on Challenger's World Echinus theory. Cosiderably less scary then the title implies.
 * 1929 - The Disintegration Machine, concerning the potentially dangerous new invention by a scientist named Theodore Nemor.

While fun and easy to read, the series never really caught on. It seems like none of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters can escape from the shadow of that other character.