Publication history
Lost Horizon: Posters and pictures | Publications | Formats & Versions | Tibet 1. "... a novel about Tibet" James Hilton's Lost Horizon is a classic work of utopian fantasy fiction first published in London and New York during 1933. Written the previous year, during the depth of the Depression, it is an uplifting story and has remained in print since then through numerous versions, including complete, abridged, illustrated, school text, play and comic forms. The story centres around a quasi-Buddhist lamasery and village known as Shangri-La located deep within the mountainous Himalayan regions of Tibet. A group of Westerners are kidnapped and brought there, with English diplomat Robert Conway marked to replace the aged High Lama [viz Dalai Lama] of the Shangri-La lamasery. The book's underlying message of peace and compassion came at a time when the horrors of the war on the Western Front were still raw in the minds of the British, and the possib