-Lost Horizon

This novel is the origin of the utopian Shangri-La valley, which is imagined as being in the Kunlun Mountains in Tibet and only accessible on foot. In the valley is a Buddhist monastery known as a lamasery, which oversees the rest of the valley and its inhabitants. The lamasery is richly decorated and contains a library with rare books and maps in a variety of languages. Inhabitants of Shangri-La enjoy a comfortable life and age slowly, leading to extended lifespans. Despite being located in Asia and based on Buddhist philosophy, the founder and High Lama of Shangri-La was a Catholic priest from Luxembourg, who was replaced by an Englishman who had been the British Consul in India. Lost Horizon and the idea of a paradisiacal Shangri-La was popularized by a 1937 film adaptation by director Frank Capra. Hilton’s novel enjoyed a boost in popularity after it was published as one of the first mass-market paperback books in 1939, the first work in publisher Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Book series. There have been numerous attempts to locate a real Shangri-La, but it remains a fully fictional place created by Hilton based primarily on 19th century travelogues he read in the British Museum library.