View source for Lost Horizon

{{Short description|1933 novel by the English writer James Hilton}}
{{Other uses|Lost Horizon (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox book| <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name          = Lost Horizon
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = Lost_Horizon_by_James_Hilton_(1933_dust_jacket).jpg
| image_size    = 200px
| caption       = Dust jacket for the first edition.
| author        = [[James Hilton (novelist)|James Hilton]]
| audio_read_by = Michael de Morgan
| illustrator   =
| cover_artist  =
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = Fantasy, [[Fiction]], [[novel]], [[Adventure novel|adventure]], [[lost world]], [[Utopian and dystopian fiction]]
| set_in        = The [[Kunlun Mountains]] of [[Tibet]], the [[British Raj]], and [[Berlin]]
| publisher     = [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]
| release_date  = 1933 / 2010 (audiobook)
| media_type    = Print (hardback & paperback), Kindle eBook, audiobook 
| pages         = ~160 pp. / 8 hrs and 26 mins
| isbn          =  978-1840243536
| isbn_note     = (UK)<br/>{{ISBN|978-0060594527}} (US)
| preceded_by   =
| followed_by   =
}}
'''''Lost Horizon''''' is a 1933 novel by the English writer [[James Hilton (novelist)|James Hilton]]. The book was adapted into a film, also called ''[[Lost Horizon (1937 film)|Lost Horizon]]'', in 1937 by the director [[Frank Capra]] and a musical remake [[Lost Horizon (1973 film)|in 1973]] by the producer Ross Hunter with music by [[Burt Bacharach]]. It is the origin of [[Shangri-La]], a [[list of utopian literature|fictional utopian]] [[lamasery]] located high in the mountains of [[Tibet]].

The novel has a [[frame story]] set in [[Berlin]], where a [[neurologist]] obtains a [[manuscript]] which records the narrative of a British diplomat who had disappeared in [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|China]]. The main narrative depicted in the manuscript starts in May 1931 within the [[British Raj]]. There is a [[revolution]] in the country and several people are [[Emergency evacuation|evacuated]]. A number of them are transported in a [[Maharaja]]'s [[airplane]], but that plane is [[Aircraft hijacking|hijacked]]. After a [[crash landing]], the four surviving passengers attempt to locate Shangri-La in the [[Kuen-Lun]] mountain range. 

==Plot==
The prologue and epilogue are a [[frame story]] narrated by a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at [[Tempelhof]], [[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 in [[Kingdom of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], 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 (probably [[Chongqing]]), [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|China]], suffering from [[amnesia]]. 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 the [[British Raj]] in India, the 80 White residents of Baskul are being evacuated to [[Peshawar]] due to revolution. In the aeroplane of the Maharajah of [[Chandrapur]] 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 to [[Tibet]]. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which only Conway speaks) to seek shelter at the nearby [[lamasery]] of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has "progressed far beyond the western range of the [[Himalayas]]" towards the lesser known heights of the [[Kuen-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 from [[Akron, Ohio]], a large library, a [[Piano#Grand|grand piano]], a [[harpsichord]], 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 honor. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Catholic monk named Perrault from [[Luxembourg]], in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging 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 kilometers 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.

==Reception and legacy ==

[[File:Marine Corps guard at Shangri-La (later Camp David) on May 7, 1944 - 208-PU-Folder 3 (29265928051).jpg|thumb|left|U.S. Marine standing guard at [[Camp David|Shangri-La]] (1944)]]

In 2001, the city of Zhongdian in [[Yunnan, China]] was renamed [[Shangri-La, Yunnan|Shangri-La City]] to promote tourism.

The book, published in 1933, caught the notice of the public only after Hilton's ''[[Goodbye, Mr. Chips]]'' was published in 1934.{{cn|date=September 2023}} ''Lost Horizon'' became a huge popular success and in 1939 was published in paperback form, as [[Pocket Books|Pocket Book #1]], making it the first [[Mass market paperback|"mass-market" paperback]].<ref name="NY">{{cite news |last=Ennis |first=Thomas W. |title=Robert F. De Graff Dies At 86; Was Pocket Books Founder |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/03/obituaries/robert-f-de-graff-dies-at-86-was-pocket-books-founder.html |access-date=November 9, 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=November 3, 1981}}</ref>

By the 1960s, Pocket Books alone, over the course of more than 40 printings, had sold several million copies of ''Lost Horizon'', helping to make it one of the most popular novels of the 20th Century.<ref>For an example of an early paperback edition, learn more about the [[Tauchnitz]] editions.</ref>

United States President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] named the Presidential hideaway in [[Maryland]], now called [[Camp David]], after Shangri-La.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-15 |title=Camp David |url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2008/winter/camp-david.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200503010745/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2008/winter/camp-david.html |archive-date=2020-05-03 |access-date=2019-10-09 |website=National Archives |quote=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.}}</ref> In 1942, to ensure the safety of returning U.S. forces, Roosevelt answered a reporter's question about the origin of the [[Doolittle Raid]] by saying it had been launched from "[[Shangri-La]]". The true details of the raid were revealed to the public a year later.<ref>{{cite news |last=Klein |first=Sandor S. |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1943/04/20/One-year-later-Tokyo-raid-story-told/8761134802538/ |title=One year later, Tokyo raid story told |date=20 April 1943 |publisher=[[United Press International]] |access-date=3 October 2019 }}</ref> This inspired the naming of the {{Sclass|Essex|aircraft carrier}} [[USS Shangri-La (CV-38)|USS ''Shangri-La'' (CV-38)]], commissioned in 1944.<ref name="Name_WW2Illustrated">{{cite web |last1=Hamilton |first1=Curtiss |title=He Flew From 'Shangri-La' to Bomb Tokyo - The War Illustrated |url=https://www.thewarillustrated.info/160/he-flew-from-shangri-la-to-bomb-tokyo.asp |website=The War Illustrated |publisher=J.C. Koppes |access-date=15 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191218100550/https://www.thewarillustrated.info/160/he-flew-from-shangri-la-to-bomb-tokyo.asp |archive-date=18 December 2019 |date=6 Aug 1943 |url-status=usurped |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>"Revenge of the Shang" http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/457/Revenge-of-the-Shang.aspx {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030153315/http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/457/Revenge-of-the-Shang.aspx |date=30 October 2020 }} Retrieved 2020-07-14.</ref>

''Lost Horizon''{{'}}s concept of Shangri-La has gone on to influence other quasi-Asian mystical locations in fiction including [[Marvel Comics]]' [[K'un-L'un]] and [[DC Comics]]' [[Nanda Parbat]].{{cn|date=September 2023}}

==Adaptations==

[[File:Lost Horizon postcard promotion 1937.JPG|thumb|upright|Promotional postcard for the 1937 film]]

===Films===

The book has been adapted for film:

* ''[[Lost Horizon (1937 film)|Lost Horizon]]'' (1937), directed by [[Frank Capra]]
* ''[[Lost Horizon (1973 film)|Lost Horizon]]'' (1973), directed by [[Charles Jarrott]] (musical version)

===Radio===

* A one-hour adaptation by James Hilton and Barbara Burnham was broadcast on the [[BBC National Programme]] at 20:30 on 1 August 1935,<ref name="Times-1935-Aug-1">{{cite newspaper The Times|title=Broadcasting|department=Arts and Entertainment|date=1 August 1935|page=12|issue=47131}}</ref> with a cast that included [[Esme Percy]] as "the High Lama", [[Ben Welden]] as "Barnard", [[Barbara Couper]] as "Miss Brinklow", Jon Swinley as "Conway" and Cathleen Cordell as "Lo Tsen".<ref name="Times-1935-Aug-2">{{cite newspaper The Times|title=Broadcast Drama|department=Reviews|date=2 August 1935|page=10|issue=47132}}</ref> It was broadcast again on 2 August 1935, 30 and 31 January 1936, 30 October 1939 and 9 April 1945.
* [[Orson Welles]] directed and starred in an adaptation for the ''[[Mercury Theatre on the Air|Campbell Playhouse]]'', broadcast on 3 December 1939 with [[Sigrid Gurie]].
* [[Ronald Colman]] reprised his screen role of "Robert Conway" a number of times for radio, including on the ''[[Lux Radio Theatre]]'' (15 September 1941), ''[[Academy Award]]'' (27 November 1946) and ''[[Favorite Story]]'' (24 July 1948).
* [[Herbert Marshall]] played "Conway" in ''[[Hallmark Playhouse]]'''s adaptation, broadcast on 30 December 1948.
* The ''[[NBC University Theater]]'' broadcast an adaptation on 10 September 1950.
* A 3-part serialization of the book by [[Malcolm Hulke]] and Paul Tabori was broadcast on the [[BBC Home Service]] 5–19 March 1966 featuring [[Gabriel Woolf]] as "Conway", [[Alan Wheatley]] as "the High Lama", [[Carleton Hobbs]] as "Chang" and Elizabeth Proud as "Lo-Tsen". This adaptation was re-broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]]'s ''Sunday Play'' 18 May – 1 June 1969.
* [[Derek Jacobi]] starred as "Hugh Conway" and [[Alan Wheatley]] reprised his role as "the High Lama" in a 3-part [[BBC Radio 4]] ''[[Classic Serial]]'' adaptation dramatised by Barry Campbell.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tq4lx|title = BBC Radio 4 Extra - James Hilton - Lost Horizon}}</ref> Originally broadcast 22 September – 4 October 1981, it was re-broadcast 8–10 September 2010 on [[BBC Radio 7]], and again in March 2012, November 2014, June 2016 and December 2019 on [[BBC Radio 4 Extra]].

===Musical===

The book served as the basis for the unsuccessful 1956 Broadway musical ''[[Shangri-La (musical)|Shangri-La]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Jie |first=Chen |title=Sacred Land Represented On Stage |newspaper=China Daily | date=24 October 2002 |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8796307.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610054101/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8796307.html|url-status=dead |archive-date=10 June 2014| access-date=27 November 2012 }}</ref>

==Publications==
''Lost Horizon'' is currently available in paperback format and is now published by Summersdale Publishers Ltd [http://www.summersdale.com], {{ISBN|978-1-84024-353-6}} and Vintage [http://www.penguin.co.uk/vintage], {{ISBN|978-0-099-59586-1}} in the UK and by Harper Perennial, {{ISBN|978-0-06-059452-7}} in the United States.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commonscat}}
* {{FadedPage|id=20181110|name=Lost Horizon}}
* [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500141h.html ''Lost Horizon'' at Project Gutenberg Australia]
* [http://www.stevenhsilver.com/hilton.html Review by Steven Silver]

{{Shangri-La}}
{{James Hilton}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lost Horizon}}
[[Category:Lost Horizon| ]]
[[Category:1933 British novels]]
[[Category:1933 fantasy novels]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1931]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 1930s]]
[[Category:English fantasy novels]]
[[Category:British adventure novels]]
[[Category:Fantasy adventure novels]]
[[Category:Fiction about amnesia]]
[[Category:Fiction about aircraft hijackings]]
[[Category:Frame stories]]
[[Category:Lost world novels]]
[[Category:Utopian novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in Berlin]]
[[Category:Novels set in British India]]
[[Category:Novels set in Tibet]]
[[Category:Novels set in fictional countries]]
[[Category:Novels set in monasteries]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Fantasy novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:British novels adapted for radio]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into plays]]
[[Category:Hawthornden Prize–winning works]]
[[Category:Novels by James Hilton]]
[[Category:Macmillan Publishers books]]
[[Category:Public domain books]]