Lost Horizon
Author: James Hilton
Hawthornden Prize Edition/16th Printing August 1936
Grossett & Dunlap
©1933/1936 William Morrow & Co.
CAB Comment––This Hawthornden Prize Edition of “Lost Horizon” from 1936 radiates with cinematic nostalgia thanks to the front and end papers that effect a foldout photo-still from the classic “Lost Horizon” film. Before I was familiar with James Hilton’s classic novel, first published in 1933, I was a fan of Frank Capra’s 1937 film adaptation starring Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt (the 80th Anniversary restoration/release on Blu-ray is excellent, by the way). But film or novel, “Lost Horizon” is loaded with nostalgia and the utopian dream that lies within all of us. Unfortunately reality is reality, and both book and movie run the thought-experiment to it’s bitter end, where utopia only works within the context of small self-contained societies and when pure luck of no bad apples (irrepressible human DNA and ego) fall from the tree of happiness and spoil the whole darn bunch. Pipe-dreaming socialists would do well to watch the film “Lost Horizon” and read book too; and so should they read H.G. Wells “The The Machine”. Once human nature is factored into the Utopian equation, a perfect world order always falls apart. As well, here within lies the basis for my own film “Human No More”.
“Lost Horizon”––GoodReads Synopsis:
“James Hilton’s bestselling adventure novel about a military man who stumbles on the world’s greatest hope for peace deep in Tibet: Shangri-La. Hugh Conway saw humanity at its worst while fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Now, more than a decade later, Conway is a British diplomat serving in Afghanistan and facing war yet again—this time, a civil conflict forces him to flee the country by plane. When his plane crashes high in the Himalayas, Conway and the other survivors are found by a mysterious guide and led to a breathtaking discovery: the hidden valley of Shangri-La. Kept secret from the world for more than two hundred years, Shangri-La is like paradise—a place whose inhabitants live for centuries amid the peace and harmony of the fertile valley. But when the leader of the Shangri-La monastery falls ill, Conway and the others must face the daunting prospect of returning home to a world about to be torn open by war. Thrilling and timeless, Lost Horizon is a masterpiece of modern fiction, and one of the most enduring classics of the twentieth century.”
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