As the novel opens, an unnamed narrator is having drinks with a novelist, Rutherford, and an embassy secretary, Wyland. Often misunderstood, even by those who most admire him, Conway is seen variously as a hero, a coward, a slacker, a wise man, and a madman. The novel tells the story of Hugh Conway, a brilliant, talented, and immensely complex man. Though most often remembered for its depiction of the mythical paradise of Shangra-La, Lost Horizon can perhaps most fruitfully be read as a probing character study and a fascinating contrast of eastern and western cultures. He died in Long Beach, California, in 1954. Hilton moved to Hollywood in 1935 and enjoyed great success as a scriptwriter, winning a Best Screenplay Oscar for Mrs.

After a stint at the Dublin newspaper, The Irish Independent, and the publication of several more novels, Hilton achieved immediate and lasting fame with Lost Horizon (1933) and Goodbye, Mr. Hilton went to on to study at Christ's College, Cambridge where, at the age of seventeen, he placed an article in the Manchester Guardian, and later published his first novel, Catherine Herself, in 1920. Chips is partly based) and moved the family to London where Hilton attended the prestigious Leys School. His father, John, was a schoolmaster (on whom the hero of Hilton's Goodbye Mr. Lost Horizon by James Hilton Note to Teachersīorn in Lancashire, England in 1900, James Hilton was both a best-selling novelist and a much sought-after Hollywood scriptwriter.

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