Lost Horizon is a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a film, also called Lost Horizon, in 1937 by director Frank Capra and a lavish musical remake in 1973 by producer Ross Hunter with music by Burt Bacharach. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopianlamasery located high in the mountains of Tibet.
The prologue and epilogue are 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 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), 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 Chandrapore are: Conway, the British consul, aged 37; Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss 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 less 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 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.
The book, published in 1933, caught the notice of the public only after Hilton's Goodbye, Mr. Chips was published in 1934.[citation needed]Lost Horizon became a huge popular success and in 1939 was published in paperback form, as Pocket Book #1, making it the first "mass-market" paperback.[1]
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.[2]
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt named the Presidential hideaway in Maryland, now called Camp David, after Shangri-La.[3] 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.[4] This inspired the naming of the Essex-classaircraft carrierUSS Shangri-La (CV-38), commissioned in 1944.[5][6]
Bridge of Time (TV, 1997) directed by Jorge Montesi.[citation needed]
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,[7] 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".[8] It was broadcast again on 2 August 1935, 30 and 31 January 1936, 30 October 1939 and 9 April 1945.
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 4Classic Serial adaptation dramatised by Barry Campbell.[9] 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.[10]
Lost Horizon is a 1937 American adventure drama fantasy film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the 1933 novel of the same name by James Hilton.
James Hilton was an English novelist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his novels Lost Horizon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest, as well as co-writing screenplays for the films Camille (1936) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), the latter earning him an Academy Award.
USS Shangri-La (CV/CVA/CVS-38) was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy.
Robert Edwin Lee was an American playwright and lyricist. In the early years of World War II, Lee partnered with Jerome Lawrence to create Armed Forces Radio while serving together in the U.S. Army. Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing partnership in radio, with such long-running series as Favorite Story among others.
Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by English author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel, the people who live in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.
Lost Horizon is a 1973 musical fantasy adventure film directed by Charles Jarrott and starring Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Michael York, Olivia Hussey, Bobby Van, James Shigeta, Charles Boyer and John Gielgud. It was also the final film produced by Ross Hunter. The film is a remake of Frank Capra's 1937 film of the same name, with a screenplay by Larry Kramer. Both stories were adapted from James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon.
Lobsang Rampa was the pen name of Cyril Henry Hoskin, an author who wrote books with paranormal and occult themes. His best known work is The Third Eye, published in Britain in 1956.
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a spiritual kingdom. Shambhala is mentioned in the Kalachakra Tantra. The Bon scriptures speak of a closely related land called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring.
Shangri-La is a fictional valley in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
The Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It is loosely based on the Molly Maguires and Pinkerton agent James McParland. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The first book edition was copyrighted in 1914, and it was first published by George H. Doran Company in New York on 27 February 1915, and illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.
The Body in the Library is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1942 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in May of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence. The novel features her fictional amateur detective Miss Marple.
"Shangri-La" is a popular song written by bandleader Matty Malneck and Robert Maxwell in 1946 with lyrics by Carl Sigman.
Berry Kroeger was an American film, television and stage actor.
Muli Tibetan Autonomous County is in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the southwest of Sichuan province, China, bordering Yunnan province to the southwest. It is a remote, mountainous and forested region with few roads. The highest peaks are nearly 6000 metres in height. The trio of the sacred Konkaling mountains - Shenrezig, Jambeyang and Chanadorje in Yading Natural Park - lie to the west in Daocheng County, barely accessible by rough jeep track from Chabulang in northern Muli County.
Estêvão Cacella (1585–1630) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.
Shangri-La is a musical with a book and lyrics by James Hilton, Jerome Lawrence, and Robert E. Lee and music by Harry Warren.
Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! is a 2007 animated direct-to-DVD comedy mystery film, and the eleventh in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video film series, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, It was released to DVD on September 4, 2007. The film is dedicated to Iwao Takamoto, a character designer for Hanna-Barbera who died on January 8, 8 months before the film's home video release. This was also the final Scooby-Doo! movie that Joseph Barbera worked on before his death on December 18, 2006.
The Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery, also known as Sungtseling and Guihuasi, is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery situated 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the city of Zhongdian at elevation 3,380 metres (11,090 ft) in Yunnan province, China. Built in 1679, the monastery is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan province and is sometimes referred to as the Little Potala Palace. Located in the capital of Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, it is also the most important monastery in southwest China.
Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok is a 5-star resort hotel owned by Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand. With a quarter of a mile of river frontage, the two towers of the property face the Saphan Taksin BTS Station.
Shangri-la is a small, secluded valley area in the McMurdo Dry Valleys completely isolated by mountain peaks. It is located immediately south of Joyce Glacier and Pewe Peak. Penance Pass connects it to Miers Valley. The valley was named by personnel of the Victoria University's Antarctic Expeditions (VUWAE) (1960-61), who found it reminded them of the fictional paradise Shangri-La in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
↑ For an example of an early paperback edition, learn more about the Tauchnitz editions.
↑ "Camp David". National Archives. 15 August 2016. Archived from the original on 3 May 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2019. 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.
↑ Hamilton, Curtiss (6 August 1943). "He Flew From 'Shangri-La' to Bomb Tokyo - The War Illustrated". The War Illustrated. J.C. Koppes. Archived from the original on 18 December 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2021. 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.
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