The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story(88)
About the Author
DOUGLAS PRESTON worked as a writer and editor for the American Museum of Natural History and taught writing at Princeton University. He has written for the New Yorker, Natural History, National Geographic, Harper’s, Smithsonian, and the Atlantic. The author of several acclaimed nonfiction books—including Cities of Gold and The Monster of Florence—Preston is also the coauthor with Lincoln Child of the bestselling series of novels featuring FBI agent Pendergast.
ALSO BY DOUGLAS PRESTON
Nonfiction Books
The Monster of Florence (with Mario Spezi) Ribbons of Time
The Royal Road
Talking to the Ground
Cities of Gold
Dinosaurs in the Attic
Novels
Impact
Blasphemy
Tyrannosaur Canyon
The Codex
Jennie
Novels (with Lincoln Child)
Agent Pendergast Novels
The Obsidian Chamber
Crimson Shore
Blue Labyrinth
White Fire
Two Graves*
Cold Vengeance*
Fever Dream*
Cemetery Dance
The Wheel of Darkness
The Book of the Dead**
Dance of Death**
Brimstone**
Still Life with Crows
The Cabinet of Curiosities
Reliquary?
Relic?
Gideon Crew Novels
Beyond the Ice Limit
The Lost Island
Gideon’s Corpse
Gideon’s Sword
Other Novels
The Ice Limit
Thunderhead
Riptide
Mount Dragon
* The Helen Trilogy ** The Diogenes Trilogy ? Relic and Reliquary are ideally read in sequence
Sources and Bibliography
The conversations reported in this book were either recorded on tape or written down at the time they occurred. The events were chronicled in real time, in contemporary notes or on video. No details, events, discoveries, or conversations have been reconstructed after the fact or imagined. To avoid confusion and unnecessary complexity, some quotations from interviews conducted on separate occasions have been combined in the same conversation.
Sources are listed in the approximate order they appear in each chapter.
Chapters with no sources listed are based on the author’s personal experience only.
Chapter 2: Somewhere in the Americas
Author interviews and correspondence with Ron Blom and Bob Crippen, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, August and September 1997.
Author interview with David Stuart, Harvard University, 1997.
Author interview with Gordon Willey, Harvard University, 1997.
Author interviews and correspondence with Steve Elkins, 1997.
Chapter 3: The Devil Had Killed Him
The Fifth Letter of Hernan Cortes to the Emperor Charles V, translated from the original Spanish by Don Pascual de Gayangos. Originally published by the Hakluyt Society. New York: Lenox Hill Publishers (Burt Franklin), reprinted 1970. Retrieved from the website of the Library of the University of California.
Christopher Begley and Ellen Cox, “Reading and Writing the White City Legend: Allegories Past and Future.” Southwest Philosophy Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, January 2007.
John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Dover Publications, 1969.
Eduard Conzemius, “Los Indios Payas de Honduras: Estudio Geográfico, Histórico, Etnográfico y Linguístico,” Journal de la Société des Américanistes, Vol. 19, 1927. Retrieved from persee.fr.
William Duncan Strong, “1936 Strong Honduras Expedition,” Vols. 1 and 2. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Unpublished journals.
William Duncan Strong, “Honduras Expedition Journal 1933.” Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Unpublished journal.
Ralph Solecki and Charles Wagley, “William Duncan Strong, 1899–1962.” American Anthropologist, Vol. 65, No. 5, 1963. Retrieved pdf from Wiley Online Library.
Chapter 4: A Land of Cruel Jungles
Christopher S. Stewart, Jungleland. New York: HarperCollins, 2013 (e-book edition).
Lawrence M. Small, “A Passionate Collector.” Washington, DC: Smithsonian magazine, November 2000.
“George Heye Dies; Museum Founder.” New York Times, January 21, 1957.
Leona Raphael, “Explorer Seeks Fabled Lost City; Spurns Weaker Sex Companionship.” Calgary Daily Herald, June 16, 1934.
“Frederick Mitchell-Hedges Dies; British Explorer and Author, 76.” New York Times, June 13, 1959.
J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Archaeologist. London: Robert Hale, 1963.
“Seek Cradle of Race in American Jungle.” New York Times, January 24, 1931.
“Hold-Up of Explorer in England Proves Hoax.” New York Times, January 17, 1927.
Chapter 5: One of the Few Remaining Mysteries
“‘City of Monkey God’ Is Believed Located.” New York Times, July 12, 1940.
“Honduran Jungles Yield Indian Data.” New York Times, August 2, 1940.