Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set mostly in Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. When the World Shook is a story of Arbuthnot who has a sudden urge to travel to the Pacific islands after his wife's death. He gets on a yacht with two friends, Bickley, a doctor, Bastin, a minister, and Arbuthnot's dog, Tommy. The craft is then taken by a cyclone after all the crew abandons ship. When the three adventurers awaken, they find themselves shipwrecked on the South Sea island of Orofena.