.jpg) Dust jacket for the first edition. | |
| Author | James Hilton |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Michael de Morgan |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy,Fiction,novel,adventure,lost world,Utopian and dystopian fiction |
| Set in | TheKunlun Mountains ofTibet, theBritish Raj, andBerlin |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
Publication date | 1933 / 2010 (audiobook) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback), Kindle eBook, audiobook |
| Pages | ~160 pp. / 8 hrs and 26 mins |
| ISBN | 978-1840243536 (UK) ISBN 978-0060594527 (US) |
Lost Horizon is a 1933 novel by the English writerJames Hilton. The book was adapted into a film, also calledLost Horizon, in 1937 by directorFrank Capra; and amusical film remake in 1973 by producer Ross Hunter with music byBurt Bacharach. It is the origin ofShangri-La, afictional utopianlamasery located high in the mountains ofTibet.
The novel has aframe story set inBerlin, where aneurologist obtains amanuscript which records the narrative of a British diplomat who had disappeared inChina. The main narrative depicted in the manuscript starts in May 1931 within theBritish Raj. There is arevolution in the country and several people areevacuated. A number of them are transported in amaharaja'saircraft, but the plane ishijacked. After acrash landing, the four surviving passengers are guided to Shangri-La in theKuen-Lun mountain range.
The prologue and epilogue are aframe story narrated by a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner atTempelhof,Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul inAfghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the neurologist that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang (probablyChongqing),China, suffering fromamnesia. Conway recovered his memory, told Rutherford his story (which Rutherford recorded in a manuscript), and then slipped away again.
Rutherford gives the neurologist his manuscript, which becomes the heart of the novel.
In May 1931, during theBritish Raj in India, the 80 White residents of Baskul are being evacuated toPeshawar because of a revolution. In the aeroplane of the Maharajah ofChandrapur are: Conway, the British consul, aged 37; Charles Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Henry D. Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss Roberta Brinklow. The plane is hijacked and flown instead over the mountains toTibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which only Conway speaks) to seek shelter at the nearbylamasery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has "progressed far beyond the western range of theHimalayas" towards the lesser known heights of theKuen-Lun mountain range.
The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating, bathtubs fromAkron, Ohio, a large library, agrand piano, aharpsichord, and food from the fertile valley below. Towering above is Karakal, literally translated as "Blue Moon," a mountain more than 28,000 feet high. Mallinson is keen to hire porters and leave, but Chang politely puts him off. The others eventually decide they are content to stay: Miss Brinklow because she wants to teach the people a sense of sin; Barnard because he is really Chalmers Bryant (wanted by the police for stock fraud) and because he is keen to develop the gold mines in the valley; and Conway because the contemplative scholarly life suits him.
A seemingly young Manchu woman, Lo-Tsen, is another postulant at the lamasery. She does not speak English, but plays the harpsichord. Mallinson falls in love with her, as does Conway, though more languidly. Conway is given an audience with the High Lama, an unheard-of honour. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form in the early eighteenth century by a Catholic monk named Perrault fromLuxembourg. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their ageing slows; if they then leave the valley, they age quickly and die. Conway guesses correctly that the High Lama is Perrault, now 250 years old.
In a later audience, the High Lama reveals that he is finally dying, and that he wants Conway to lead the lamasery. The High Lama then dies. Conway contemplates the events.
Hours after the High Lama dies, Conway is outside still pondering the events while in the moonlight. Mallinson then grabs him by the arm and tells Conway he has arranged to leave the valley with porters and Lo-Tsen. Barnard and Brinklow have decided to stay. The porters and Lo-Tsen are waiting for him five kilometres outside the valley, but he cannot traverse the dangerous route alone, so he convinces Conway to go along and assist him. Conway is caught, divided between the two worlds. Ultimately, because of his love for the boy, he decides to join Mallinson. This ends Rutherford's manuscript.
The last time Rutherford saw Conway, it appeared he was preparing to make his way back to Shangri-La. Rutherford completes his account by telling the neurologist that he attempted to track Conway and verify some of his claims of Shangri-La. He found the Chung-Kiang doctor who had treated Conway. The doctor said Conway had been brought in by a Chinese woman, who was ill and died soon after. She was old, the doctor had told Rutherford, "Most old of anyone I have ever seen," implying that it was Lo-Tsen, aged drastically by her departure from Shangri-La. The narrator wonders whether Conway can find his way back to his lost paradise.
_on_May_7%2c_1944_-_208-PU-Folder_3_(29265928051).jpg)
The book, published in 1933, caught the notice of the public only after Hilton'sGoodbye, Mr. Chips was published in 1934.[citation needed]Lost Horizon became a huge popular success and in 1939 was published in paperback form, asPocket Book #1, making it the first"mass-market" paperback.[1]
United States PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt named the Presidential hideaway inMaryland, now calledCamp David, after Shangri-La.[2] In 1942, to ensure the safety of returning U.S. forces, Roosevelt answered a reporter's question about the origin of theDoolittle Raid by saying it had been launched from "Shangri-La". The true details of the raid were revealed to the public a year later.[3] This inspired the naming of theEssex-classaircraft carrierUSSShangri-La (CV-38), commissioned in 1944.[4][5]
By the 1960s, Pocket Books alone, over the course of more than 40 printings, had sold several million copies ofLost Horizon, helping to make it one of the most popular novels of the 20th Century.[6]
Lost Horizon's concept of Shangri-La has gone on to influence other quasi-Asian mystical locations in fiction includingMarvel Comics'K'un-L'un andDC Comics'Nanda Parbat.[citation needed]
In 2001, the city of Zhongdian inYunnan, China was renamedShangri-La City to promote tourism.
The book has been adapted for film:
The book served as the basis for the unsuccessful 1956 Broadway musicalShangri-La.[10]
Lost Horizon is currently available in paperback format and is now published by Summersdale Publishers Ltd[1],ISBN 978-1-84024-353-6 and Vintage[2],ISBN 978-0-099-59586-1 in the UK and by Harper Perennial,ISBN 978-0-06-059452-7 in the United States.
Officially a U.S. Navy installation, the facility was originally built by the Works Progress Administration as a camp for government employees, opening in 1938. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took it over in a few years and named it "Shangri-La," for the mountain kingdom in Lost Horizon, the 1933 novel by James Hilton. It was renamed in 1953 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in honor of his then-five-year-old grandson, Dwight David Eisenhower II.
For a year the world knew no more than that U.S. planes had bombed Japan from a base which President Roosevelt called "Shangri-La" in playful allusion to the mythical country of James Hilton's novel, Lost Horizon.
